Tissue Paper Tree

This is a great simple outdoor activity for kids that develops their fine motor skills whilst they play. It is also great for developing an understanding of the world around us. So often when are out outdoors my two pick up sticks and are then desperate to take them home so this is the perfect way to make use of them.

Set Up

No set up required, just head outside and let your little one start collecting twigs and sticks. Once you get back inside find a jar or a vase to put them in. We put some water in ours as, although the twigs didn’t need water, it stopped the jar from toppling over as we added our leaves.

Then we used the green tissue paper from our Changing Trees Activity box to create our leaves. Ripping pieces of tissue paper off and then threading them onto the twigs. Ripping tissue paper itself is great for motor skill and finger strength development. The threading them onto the twigs was a challenge, sometimes the more spindly twigs snapped but then we were left with the sturdier part and could then use this for threading. Sometimes the tissue paper ripped completely as we tried to push it further down the twig. M however realised that we we could just scrunch and wrap the ripped ones around the twigs instead.

When we were collecting our twigs I made a point of asking the girls to have a look at the trees around us, which had leaves which didn’t. If they didn’t have leaves what did this mean? We talked about why trees had leaves and then also what happened to the leaves in autumn.

We brought our finished tree inside and will now use it as part of our easter decorations. Adding wooden eggs.