Monday 9 December 2013

Simple paper wreaths for toddlers

Today we made Christmas wreaths. This is a really simple paper activity that is great for children just learning how to use scissors. It also results in a pretty decoration that doesn't jar my unfortunate  perfectionist tendencies!

My two year old got his first pair of scissors a few months ago, and he loved them. For weeks our home was strewn with recycling-bin-confetti. So as the leaves all turned for autumn, I helped him make this autumn wreath that we blutacked to his door:


Then we made this flower to stick over his little brother's cot:


Now it's winter and the Christmas decorations are out, I decided to make a Christmas wreath to replace it. 



And for once I remembered to take some pictures of the process! This is how we made them.

Materials
1. A selection of green papers and light card, and one small sheet of red. (You could do this with just one or two greens, we used one of each green I found in our stash).
2. One sheet heavier paper or light card for the background. Ours was white A3.
3. Scissors for adults and if they're old enough, for the child/children. We have a plastic pair for 2 year olds that only (barely) cut paper.
4. A pencil and something to draw circles in different sizes. We used kitchen mixing bowls.
5. Glue or other adhesive. I happened to have a scrapbooking tape runner, but glue should work fine.

Instructions
1. Draw a ring, one larger circle with a smaller circle inside, on your background heavy paper/light card.
2. Cut out the ring.

3. Get your child to cut the green paper/s into small pieces. Ours were around 2-3cms across. Any shape is fine; random is better than regular for this. It may help smaller children if you cut strips of paper and let them cut the strips into pieces. Children who can't use scissors could tear up the paper.

4. Put adhesive on the ring, and let the child stick their paper pieces on randomly.
I put small amounts of adhesive on at a time, letting them stick a few pieces on, before applying more adhesive.
Slowly fill in any gaps they have left until none of the background is visible.

5. Cut the red paper or card into even smaller pieces. I aimed for less than 2cm across.
6. Apply adhesive and get your child to stick on the red "berries".

That's it! Simple paper wreaths for Christmas.

One of these is stuck to his door, the other is going in the post to Grandma. :)