Fall Trees

Have I ever mentioned that I love Fall? Oh, I have...well I still do. I also love fall decorations, something about the warm earthy colors just makes me happy. Unfortunately, we are poor students so we can't afford to buy cool fall decorations. Instead, I usually make my own by printing out online coloring sheets and coloring them myself and cutting them out and taping them in the front window. I will probably get around to doing that this year, maybe. But I figured since the boys are old enough to do art projects, that I could probably find ways to let them help me decorate. And it would be a two for one because not only would we get decorations out of the deal, but it would occupy them. :)

I found a really simple, but super cute craft idea here for making fall trees. Today turned out to be the perfect day too, because Adelia actually took a long nap in here own bed (which meant I didn't have to hold her! It also meant we missed the library today...oh well, you can't have your cake and eat it to I guess.) so we had a good stretch of time where I could easily help both boys with their project. 

To start out I traced one each of their hands connected to their arms, to make a tree trunk looking shape. Then I cut them out and glued Ivan's onto his paper for him. Lincoln got to use a glue stick and glue his own on. Then I gave Ivan some fall colored markers and let him draw on his for awhile, while I helped Lincoln get started. I took fall colored tissue paper and cut it into small squares and put them in a pile for Lincoln. Then I gave him some Elmers glue and showed him how to make little glue dots on his paper and then stick the "leaves" to it. Then I let him do his thing, but had to remind him every five seconds to make small glue dots, not big ones. Then I put glue dots on Ivan's paper for him and helped him stick leaves to the dots.

It was interesting to me to watch how differently each boy went about the project. I don't know if it was age or personality that made the difference. Probably a little of both. Lincoln did his very methodically. He started at the bottom and went up the side of the tree in a straight line, and then on each of the fingers, and then back down again to the bottom, and then up the center of the tree. He glued all his orange leaves first, then yellow, then red. And then filled in the rest at the end, with some encouragement from me. Ivan was all over the place. He didn't care about what color or where it went, he just wanted as many leaves on his paper as he could get. And when I wasn't getting glue dots down fast enough for him, he's just pick up the tissue paper and put in on the paper without any glue. And he kept asking for more.

I think our trees turned out cute, and I plan on hanging them in the window (in place of our tulips that are still up) when they dry all the way.