Decorate the Christmas Tree: Easy Fine Motor Activity for Kids

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INSIDE: Decorate the Christmas Tree using pipe cleaners and beads! It’s a festive and easy fine motor holiday craft for kids of all ages! Create a colourful beaded tree while working on those all important smaller muscle in the hands that are necessary for everything from doing up buttons to writing your name!

Christmas Activities

We are loving doing crafts in our house during the holidays. Check out this latest craft/ activity using sparkly pipe cleaners and pony beads. The great thing about this activity is that you can age it down if need by. If you have a toddler 18 months and up you can use coloured pasta instead of the small pony beads to decorate the pipe cleaner Christmas Tree!!

You can also modify this idea to make it a counting activity. Beside each pipe cleaner, write the number and invite your child to thread that number of beads or colour pasta along the pipe cleaners.

Decorate the Christmas Tree: Easy Fine Motor Activity for Kids

OK ready? Let’s get crafting!

Looking for more Fun Christmas Crafts & Activities? Check out these fun ideas:

Pipe Cleaner Christmas Tree

Grab a peice of cardboard and 4-5 pip cleaners. If your child is using pasta add a few more, if they are using beads add a few less.

How to Attach the Pipe Cleaners

Grab your hot glue gun and squeeze out a large doll on the top of your piece of cardboard. Stick one end of each pipe cleaner into the glue and press down. Continue adding them close together in one point so that they form a triangle.

Cut out a large star from yellow construction paper or foam sheet or if you have it sparkly gold foam sheets. I have foam sheets that are self adhesive which is helpful otherwise you can stick the star over the pipe cleaners ends in the glue. Make the star large enough that it covers all the pipe cleaners at the top of the tree.

Time to Decorate The Christmas Tree

Invite your little one to thread pony beads, wooden beads or coloured penne pasta along the pipe cleaners to decorate the Christmas tree.

Once each strand is done you can poke the end into the cardboard to keep the beads from coming off. You can also invite your child to decorate the background of the tree with snowflakes. You can use a Q-Tip and white paint to make small snowflakes.

Age Suitability

This activity is great for kids 18months + if using penne pasta coloured and 3 years + with pony beads or wooden beads. My kids are 3.5, 3.5, and 7 year old.

Supplies

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Cardboard
Pipe Cleaners
Pony Beads, Wooden beads or dye coloured pasta
Hot glue gun
Glitter gold foam sheet
Scissors

Books, TV Show & Play Kits!

Book: Exciting Sensory Bins for Curious Kids

Did you know I wrote a book of sensory bins? Click here for more information Exciting Sensory Bin for Curious Kids. Or grab your copy at Amazon.

Engage your child in hours of play with my colorful collection of over 60 sensory bin activities, recipes and play projects that aid with memory formation, language development, problem-solving skills and more. Perfect for toddlers from eighteen months to three years old and beyond, each bin makes use of materials you already have at home and helps reignite your kids’ interest in toys long forgotten.

Boring afternoons are made exciting with awesome animal-based bins, like Salty Shark Bay or Yarn Farm. Pretend play bins like Birthday Cake Sensory Play or Bubble Tea Party encourage creativity and imagination. And your kids will have so much fun they won’t even know they’re getting smarter with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) activities like Sink or Float Soup, Magnetic Letter Hunt or Ice Cream Scoop and Count.

With setup instructions, details on how to guide your child through each activity, suggestions for what to talk about with your child as they play and other useful tips, Mandisa gives you all the information you need for creative sensory activities your kids are bound to love.

Designed for toddlers 18 months and up.

Book: Super STEAM Activity Book for Kids

Learning all about science, technology, engineering, art, and math sets kids up for scholastic success―and it can be so much fun! Watch kids enjoy building STEAM skills as they color friendly fish, help water find its way to tree roots, solve math problems with mazes, and more.

Find out more and grab your copy here.

Designed for preschoolers 3 years old and up.

How to Make Colored Spaghetti for Sensory Play

Book: Big Book of Riddles for Kids

Riddle me this: What’s an exciting way to practice critical thinking while having a blast? The Big Riddle Book for Kids, of course! From hilarious puns to tough brain teasers, kids can build problem-solving skills with hundreds of riddles that show them how to think outside the box.

350 riddles for kids—Have hours of fun with riddles, puns and jokes, and math and logic puzzles that’ll get their wheels turning!
Level up their skills—Riddles get trickier as kids progress through the book, challenging them as they get better at solving puzzles!
Double-check their work—Kids can check their answers in the back of the book with a handy answer key.

Help children expand their minds while having fun with this puzzle book for kids!

Designed for kids ages 6 years old and up.

TV Show: Curious Crafting

I’m so excited to finally share my new crafting TV show Curious Crafting which launched July 1 at on TVOkids and TVOkids YouTube!

Set in the ultimate crafting space, Curious Crafting is a short form pre-school age series about the joy of making crafts. I lead a rotating cast of adorable little preschoolers (including my own) making magic out of common household objects.

In each episode we transform recycled items into magical crafts like a milk carton school bus, paper bag puppet or cotton pad turtle. The crafters learn and laugh their way through each activity while demonstrating what their young imaginations can create.

Curious Crafting shares the adventure and joy of making art with takeaway lessons for creating crafts at home.

This show designed for toddlers and preschoolers 2.5 years old and up.

The Best Sensory Play Kits for Kids

Play is at the core of learning during the early years and it can take many forms. One of the most important of these is sensory play because it engages all of a child’s senses (taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing) and has a enoumous positive impact on brain development.

Our Sensory Play Kits are some fun and easy ways to keep your child engaged while at the same time using sensory play to nurture their mind!