What a wonderful time of the year. A time of storms. A time of fallen branches. A time of crafts to make with those fallen branches.
Ok, maybe the song doesn’t quite go like that, but there are an awful lot of branches about. Before you take them to the chipper or the compost, bring them indoors and use them for winter crafts. These bare branches are good raw material for craft projects that open up a conversation about forests and forest animals.
One of my favorite simple branch crafts that is floating around Pinterest is a designer’s delight. Take one small, relatively flat branch and a piece of white paper. Glue the branch to the paper. Now the design part: with your child, choose different colors, sizes, and shapes of buttons and glue them onto the paper as if they are leaves. The result is a celebration of color. And of course, it’s a good opportunity to practice primary math skills like sorting different shapes and sizes!
How about a branch mobile? Ingredients: take one branch. Make sure it is clean and dry. Cut out animals, leaves, and other forest bits and pieces out of beautiful colored paper. Punch a hole at the end of each of the pieces of paper, and tie a piece of string or yarn to the end of the hole. Hang the branch from the ceiling, and hang the forest bits on the branch. You now have a branch mobile!
No storms in your area? Lacking branches? Create a tree branch out of all of the paper in your Christmas boxes. Butcher paper or plain old brown paper will do. This is the craft to remove any Christmas time stress. Roll up your paper, then twist it in one direction. Add smaller parts using masking tape, and you’ll have an entire tree. Use these paper branches to create a tree habitat for stuffed animals.
Image Credit: cpzgrl05