A Wintery Tree Playdate

Kids can start the play date and create their own pretty colored winter trees with mary making using white circles for snow and wintry color tissue papers. 

Good for ages 3 and up.

Get the instructions here:
http://marymaking.blogspot.com/2009/11/colorful-abstract-winter-trees.html 

 

Next, check out Carole Gerber's Book Winter Trees full of the subtle charms of trees in winter. On a walk through a forest, a boy observes the branches, shapes, and various barks. He and his dog make snow angels, watch animals quietly eating, and tap a maple tree for syrup.  In a simple poetic form, seven trees are described: sugar maple, American beech, paper birch, yellow poplar, bur oak, Eastern hemlock, and white spruce. Readers get a sense of what they look like from a distance ("the egg shape of the maple tree/the taller oval of the beech…" and up close ("the peeling bark of paper birch/feeds hungry hares that eat their fill").  The illustrations mix prints, watercolor, and collage, and are tweaked with digital enhancement. 

The book is also available on Amazon.

Next have the kids create their own tree snacks using chunks of cheese and grapes and a celery stick for the trunk.

If the weather is not too cold complete this cute winter scavenger hunt.

Get the template here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_QY0YTOrC2-vwC712v_T8wHHLHCMTydJ8n3w-yEk-Rk/pub