Thursday, December 2, 2010

Little Tree


This week, we read Little Tree, poem by e.e. cummings, story and paintings by chris raschka.  The poem is a tribute to a tiny Christmas tree, and it inspired this lovely story about a little tree that dreams of holiday stardom.  We own this book because I fell in love with it a few years ago and knew it was a book we had to own.

When I saw the crayon melt Christmas trees on the Almost Unschoolers blog, I immediately thought of this book and knew we had to do the craft.  For a detailed explanation about how to make the craft, click on the words Almost Unschoolers in the previous sentence.  Here is my condensed explanation of the craft:

First, C and R cut triangles out of green construction paper.  They used the hole puncher to punch holes all over the triangles.


Then we placed some different colored crayon shavings in between two pieces of wax paper and put that between two towels; I used a warm iron to melt the crayons and wax paper together.


I did change one thing from the Almost Unschoolers directions.  Instead of worrying about lining up the holes, we just used green tissue paper for the side of the tree that would be taped to the window.  So, I cut the melted crayon wax paper to fit between the construction paper triangle (with holes punched in it) and the tissue paper triangle (with no holes punched because the light will shine right through the tissue paper) and glued them all together.  We cut a strip of brown paper and stuck it in as the trunk while the glue was wet.


The trees look so pretty in the window!  Thank you, once again, to Almost Unschoolers for a really cool idea.

I am linking this to stArt at A Mommy's Adventures.

15 comments:

momandkiddo said...

I love this book! It was one of my urban picture books, and it is soom to make an appearance on storied cities. A good activity to do with it!

phasejumper said...

Those turned out really cute! e.e. cummings wrote my second favorite poem, "i thank you God for most this amazing"!

Anonymous said...

What a fun craft! Very pretty decoration to keep up until Christmas :-)

Unknown said...

This is a very lovely christmas tree craft. The book sounds inspiring as well. Thank you for sharing.

Jennifer said...

FABULOUS idea -- as always! You always find the best books!

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

I remember reading the book last year, but I admit that neither of us really cared about it. But the wax tree does go well with it, and your trees look beautiful.

Ticia said...

Hmmm, I think there may have been a blogger error, so just in case.

Those turned out so cute. I need to do a crayon shavings craft at some point.

Michelle said...

I will have to look for this book it sounds amazing and I love the project that you did to go along with this book. I will have to give it a try with Emily :0)

Thank you for linking up to stART!!

An Almost Unschooling Mom said...

I love ee cummings - I will look for that book!

Your trees turned out very nice. Good idea with the tissue paper :)

Christianne @ Little Page Turners said...

That craft went in my to-do list too! They turned out great and I've got to go see if our library has that book.

Unknown said...

I will have to look for the book. The trees are wonderful. I bet the light really makes the ornaments sparkle.

Debbie said...

These are so cute! I have to see if I can find that book.

Unknown said...

Great idea. Christy, I've shared this with our followers on FB and twitter as Magic Christmas for Toddlers day 4 book suggestion. If you have more ideas with books, crafts, activities, toys, you can add to our linky at http://tinyurl.com/3yyupl2 Just watch out, we have 5 linkies in one post for each category! ;) It will stay open until after the Christmas!

Sherri said...

Your so creative!

Amber said...

Love this idea, thanks for passing along. I will be adding it to my advent ideas!!