Holiday Craft – Handprint Christmas Tree
Holiday crafts can really help kids get into the spirit of the season – and they can teach great developmental skills at the same time. This handprint Christmas Tree gives kids a really fun way to practice their scissor skills and you end up with a really festive piece of preschool art to hang up for the holidays.
This project does involve a lot of cutting so depending on the age of the child, it can take quite a bit of time to complete. You can break the project up into several sessions for younger kids or help them cut a few of the handprints out. My 4 1/2 year old sat and did this in one session and even though he said it was kind of hard to cut the handprints out, he was so proud of himself when he was done – although he did say that we definitely needed a star on top so we’ll have to add that next time we do this project.
Supplies Needed
- Green Construction Paper
- Red Construction Paper (or another color of your choice)
- Kid-Friendly Scissors
- Glue
- Assorted Craft Supplies – Buttons, Sequins, Glitter, etc.
Instructions
- Help your preschooler trace his hand on a piece of green construction paper. For a small Christmas Tree, you’ll need 6 handprints, but you can do more than that if you’d like to create a taller tree.
- Have your preschooler glue his handprints down on a piece of paper (any color is fine). Arrange them with 3 on the bottom, 2 in the middle, and one on the top.
- Give your preschooler assorted craft supplies and let him decorate his handprint Christmas Tree any way he likes. We used buttons because they were easy but you could use anything you have in your preschool craft supplies.
- Optional – Cut out a star from a yellow piece of paper and add it to the top of your tree.
Variation
Younger kids may have an easier time doing this project by painting their hands and making painted handprints on a piece of paper. You can either cut out the painted handprints afterwards and do this project as explained above or help the child stamp their hand in the form of a Christmas Tree.
Older children can enjoy this project too. Just set them lose with some basic instructions and stay out of their way so they can be free to create. My kids usually end up surprising me by coming up with something more creative than I would have come up with on my own.
