Layered Paper Plate Christmas Tree

      This Christmas project is made from layers of paper plates stacked together to form a ruffled looking, three dimensional tree. Just cut the bottom layer in the shape of a triangle and then each following tier will be slightly shorter. Use the first triangle as your template, measuring length and size against it as you progress up the tree. Trace, cut and glue until your tree is finished. Then mount it, with additional white glue, onto an uncut round paper plate to form the background. After painting the tree and background, you may need to apply additional glue to the sections to keep the tree intact. Let everything dry and then add your ornamentation. I used a fancy hole punch to make the shimmering stars and also pasted on pom-poms to accent my little tree.

More Christmas Trees From Paper Plates:

• Paper Plate Christmas Trees
• Paper Plate Christmas Tree from Star-Bulletin
• Paper Plate Pop Up Christmas Tree

The Christmas Feast

Upstairs, while folk with quip and joke were there-from kid to cat:
At Christmas dinner, down below another company sat.
For merry mice with manners nice were in the basement met
To celebrate the day of days and all their trials forget.
The brightest mouse about the house put whiskers on his face
And, thus disguised as Santa Claus, crept slyly to the place.
The laugh went 'round: each diner found himself in merry mood,
And, blessed with keenest appetites, enjoyed the festive food.

Make A Paper Christmas Tree Collage

 Christmas Eve

My childhood's Christmases each brought to me

The wondrous glory of a Christmas tree;

Now, every year, since I've to manhood grown,

I buy a tree for children of my own. 

And so to-night my mind looks back and sees

Life a long avenue of Christmas trees.    

This little tree collage could look like anything.
Here is just one example using the patterns below.

      Print color and cut these little old-fashioned ornaments onto a printed Christmas tree. Younger children can paste stickers to their tree to decorate it. Don't forget to add gems or sequins to the tree for a bit of bling!

• See even tinier tree ornaments we made for our dollhouse trees!

Old-Fashioned Christmas Ornament Shapes for cutting and
pasting into pictures by Kathy Grimm

Download this jpg. into a Word Doc file and stretch it out to fit
your paper's size. Then print it on a pale green paper for
the kiddos to decorate!

       Kids can also make a paper dove to hang on a Christmas tree at home, in school or at church if they like. Above is a pattern for a dove plus it's crown. Purchase white cup cake liners for the wings and tail. Little ones will need white school glue and child-safe scissors for this ornament craft.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Download and print the pattern for a dove above. 
2. Cut out the dove body and trace it on top of heavy white posterboard.
3. Color the beak of the dove yellow.
4. Cut white cup cake liners in half and press the accordion folds back in place with your finger tips while gluing the wings to the paper birds body.
5. Do the same as step 4. for the ruffled tail of the dove.
6. Cut a small crown for the dove from gold tinsel paper and glue it to the head of the dove.
7. Poke a hole at the top of the bird's head for threading gold twine through. Tie the ends of the twine together so that the bird may be hung from the branch of a tree.

Craft a Christmas Themed "Time For Tea Placmat"

      Parents and teachers can help little ones assemble this tea time placemat craft by tracing and cutting out the printable template below. I used some pretty Christmas patterned paper for my own sample shown on the right. I also layered the paper tea cups on top of a white doily and added two tea tags from some actual tea bags. I glued these as if they were steeping inside my tea cups. 

      Children can play simple math games will waiting for their lunch or tea + crumpets! Simply ad and subtract using the visual aid i.e. placemat and a few lumps of sugar thus:

• Add the two together = counting all of the sugar cubes present in both tea cups.
• Subtract the lower number of sugar cubes from the higher.
• How many sugar cubes can you stack together within each tea cup?
• How many lumps of sugar do you take in your tea? How about your companion?

More Tea Time Crafts:

• It's Tea Time! invitations
• Dimensional tea time cup
• tea party from Clare's creations
• tea time cookies from cake journal
• Tea Time Tin, It's a Cinch DIY Tutorial
• Christmas Pudding Tea Cosy
• Cute Christmas Cosies to Knit!
• Little wooden tea cup set for a Christmas tree
• Crafting at a Christmas tea party
• How to Organize and plan a Christmas Tea Party
• Tis the Season! high tea from Cristina Re
• Craft felt holiday tea party eco treats and sweets
• Share a cup of tea
• A tea wreath made with actual tea bags

Christmas Tea Gifts:

• Give A Cup of Spicy Christmas Tea
• 5 Best Flavors of Herbal Teas
• Grown Your Own Tea From Seeds
• Gifts for Herbal Tea Lovers
• The Top 10 Teas for Your Herbal Medicine Cabinet

The downloadable, printable template of tea cups by Kathy Grimm

After photographing this Christmas tea placemat, I laminated it, minus the sugar cubes of course.

Polly gave a dollies' tea,

And many guests were there:

Kitty came in white fur coat

And Rover in curled hair.

Soldier Tim, with sword so bright,

And Miss Susanna Lee

Sat beside old Rover Dog

And Kitty at the tea.

Make a Marshmallow Math Placemat to Count On For Christmas!

If you don't have access to a laminating machine, you may purchase alternative kinds of
 materials from many hobby stores and office supply outlets. These stores do sell individual
 sheets and/or packs of transparent adhesive covers for this kind of project. Just describe
 to them what you need to make with the craft project. Contact paper can also be used to
 waterproof children's placemats.

      How about assembling a cute little Christmas placemat for your early learner for the holidays? Parents or teachers can pre-cut the shapes from fun printed papers in advance. Then your young children can assemble and paste the large mug of Christmas cocoa onto a festive sheet of paper before laminating the entire mat. I also added a few Christmas stickers to my cocoa mugs. 

       Count how many marshmallows can fit inside your cocoa cup, or how high you can stack them before they fall! Try rolling dice to count out equivalent numbers of marshmallows too. Be careful, marshmallow math is not always so very reliable; the props often disappear the moment a parent's back is turned!

Above is a template, mug for hot chocolate or cocoa, that I have designed for
this counting placemat project.

Make More Christmas Placemats with The Kids:

• My "Time for Tea Version" for those of you who simply prefer tea or who live in England

 "Trimming the Christmas Tree" Game

       Two tiny Christmas trees are placed on stands, one in front of each of the two lines the children have formed. Each child has been given some little ornament for the tree. When the signal is given, the first child in each row is led up to the tree, blindfolded, and told to hang his ornament on the tree in the most artistic place he can ''feel.'' As soon as he has done this he tales off the blindfold, runs back to his line and puts the blindfold on the next player. This player is then led to the tree and he, in turn, puts his ornament on the tree, and when he has finished, hurries back to give his blindfold to the next trimmer. This continues until they have all put their ornaments on the tree.

       However, all this while the children in the other line are doing the same thing, and it becomes a race to see which line can first trim its tree.

       It  can hardly be said that trees so trimmed are things of beauty. Neither can it be said that one's opponents always appreciate one's blind efforts at artistic effect!

Color a Nostalgic Portrait of Santa Claus for a Christmas Calendar

      Above is a photo of the Nostalgic Santa Calendar in progress. I used a black, felt tip, permanent ink marker to hand letter my calendar numbers. It is traditional to depict only the twenty-five days until December 25th on a calendar such as this. Use white glue and cotton balls to cover each day as it passes. Children will enjoy giving Santa a snowy, white beard by the time he comes to fill their stockings with treats and candy!

      Layer colored pencils in order to create depth in Santa's portrait. On the left, I first chose to emphasize the wrinkles in Santa's face with a dark brown. Then I selected a bright red to draw attention to his rosy cheeks and nose. Then I colored his entire face with a flesh toned pencil. These three color selections will help your colored drawings to look three dimensional. As you improve, you will add many more color combinations to your skin tones. But, these three should suffice for young students.

      Again, as you can see I have selected a lavender and then a ruby red to layer beneath the red of Santa's hat before coloring the entire hat with a fire engine red. You can try multiple color combinations to see how different the portrait will look if you'd like.

      Above is an example of layering color compliments. I chose to green and red for the holly. After cutting out the holly leaves, I pasted a thin strip of foam to the backside of each leaf in order to add extra dimension to the calendar. Glue on a red pom pom or two for the berries.

      Above is a free coloring page of Santa for little one to use when assembling

their December count down to Christmas calendar.

The Santa Claus Puzzle Game

       If gifts are to be distributed it adds a great deal to the fun to have a bit of mystery about it. Santa Claus comes in with his pack on his back. After the usual preliminaries he announces that he has a wonderful lot of gifts in his pack, but that the only way a guest can get one of his wonderful packages is to guess what is inside each one of them; you know what this element of mystery will do for children!

       Every package is identified to Santa of it's contents by a small label that only he can see clearly. But, the children are seated too far from the packages to read this small label.

       All the gifts are wrapped up in tissue paper in strange shapes, so that there is no clue as to what they actually are. Santa Claus takes out one gift at a time from his bag and holds it up in front of the guests. Then he asks them to guess what it is. The first one to call out that it is a book, when it may actually look like a windmill or a giraffe or a ball, receives the gift. The gift must then be held onto the child with the first correct guess and not opened until all of the children have received a present from Santa. Then and only then are the children allowed to open their gifts and no further entertainment is necessary!

       However, Santa Claus must be a very tactful and observant person. He may notice when one little child is too timid to speak up and say just what she thinks is in a package. So he picks out a gift, turns to her and says directly to her, ''Tell me, little girl, what do you think is in here?'' and then gives her easy clues to help her guess correctly, much to her delight. It may also be possible that other children may speak when it is inappropriate to do so, but Santa must act as though he has trouble hearing them if younger or shyer children are to be heard above the excitement.

       Also, if there are both girls and boys guessing during the game Santa may need to specify - ''This next gift is something in which only girls are interested in. Let a boy make a guess at his own peril!" - so that the toys distributed come to those who will delight the most in them.