Seasonal Tree Craft for Toddlers & Preschoolers

Exploring the Changes of the Four Seasons Through Art

Oct 21, 2009

Throughout the year, create a series of four three-dimensional pictures of a tree to show the changing seasons. Display the results at home or in the classroom.

This craft project can be started during any season. Create the basic tree from half a toilet tissue tube glued to cardboard. Then decorate the tree and its surroundings to suit the season. At the end of the year, the child will have a visual almanac of a tree during the four seasons.

Children can follow the changes they observe on a specific tree in their backyard or schoolyard, or they can create a generic tree that undergoes changes from one season to the next. Parents and young children can also create a seasonal journal that will help children appreciate the smaller changes that occur day-to-day or week-to-week in nature.

Create a Paper Tree

For each tree, the parent should cut a toilet tissue tube in half vertically, creating two pieces from each tube. Use non-washable white glue to attach each half onto a piece of blue cardstock or lightweight cardboard painted blue, approximately 8 ½” x 11” (larger cardboard is fine). This creates the basic tree trunk for all of the trees. Allow the glue to dry completely.

Decorate a Winter Tree Picture

Give the child washable brown tempera paint to paint the trunk of the tree. Have the child paint brown branches onto the cardboard so they seem to be an extension of the cardboard tube. When the paint dries, give the child white cotton balls to represent snow and have the child glue the cotton balls onto the picture. (Squeeze a little white glue onto a paper plate and have the child dip the cotton ball into the glue and then attach it to the picture.)

Pull apart one or two cotton balls so the material is wispy. The parent then adds a thin line of glue to a few of the branches. The child attaches the wispy cotton balls to the branches to represent snow clinging to the bare branches.

Decorate a Spring Tree Picture

Have the child paint the tree trunk and add the branches. Glue white or pink cotton balls or tiny pompoms to the branches, representing flowers. Another option is to tear tiny strips of colored tissue paper and roll the pieces into wads that get glued to the branches.

Decorate a Summer Tree Picture

Again, have the child paint the tree trunk and add the branches with paint to the cardboard. Glue purchased paper leaves to the tree. Collage torn green tissue paper, construction paper, or even green pictures from magazines onto the branches of the tree. Make the tree full so little of the branches can be seen. Add green grass.

Decorate an Autumn or Fall Tree Picture

Have the child paint the tree trunk and add painted branches. Glue on torn tissue paper in red, orange, and yellow. Or, use bingo-like paint markers in fall colors to dot colorful leaves onto the branches. Allow some of the branches to show through. Add a few leaves around the base of the trunk to show how some of the leaves have fallen.

Parents and teachers can work with their toddlers or preschoolers to create four pictures throughout the year that show the changing of the season. Adults can take children on exploratory walks or do other art and craft projects that show the cycle of the year and reinforce a child’s understanding of the seasons.

The copyright of the article Seasonal Tree Craft for Toddlers & Preschoolers in Parent-Child Crafts is owned by Susan Caplan. Permission to republish Seasonal Tree Craft for Toddlers & Preschoolers in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.