A Tree for All Seasons

I recently came up with a fun way to teach my pre-schooler about the four seasons... and since my older son was home on spring break, he helped out and made one for himself as well! We will call this my Hand-Tree Mobile.

The first thing you will need to do is cut out some cardstock (or some other paper that will withstand paint and glue). We chose to use several shades of blue, mostly because that's what I had! These pieces were 12x12 scrapbook cardstock that I simply cut down the center to form 2 each of 6x12 sheets. Then the messy part begins...

1. Either paint (with a sponge paintbrush) or dip your child's hand in brown paint and help him/her create a hand print towards the top of the paper to form the BRANCHES of the tree.

2. Take a brush and paint on the trunk with more brown paint.

3. While the "tree" is drying choose your decorations for each season.

4. We used a leaf punch that I had from scrap booking, but you could also cut them out by hand or just tear scraps of paper into small "leaves". We punched out several green ones for SUMMER and several orange/red/yellow/brown ones for FALL. Then we chose some flowers in pastel colors (also scrapbook supplies, but you could use stickers or more hand-cut paper) for SPRING. We took some cotton balls and pulled them apart for the snow on our WINTER tree.

5. Once the trees are dry, begin gluing the decorations to each tree. Label them (if you want) and you're almost done!

6. We decided to hang ours from hangers with yarn, but you could also just put them up on the wall, on the window, frame them... whatever!