Since we need to have the trees up in the month of November to solicit the donations, we opted to decorate them to celebrate fall and gratitude.
Multiple agencies participating in the Child Abuse Prevention Council developed autumn themed ornament crafts for children in our community to create.
Tahoe Youth & Family Services used a die cup machine to create leaf shapes from brown construction paper.
Children were offered glue, glitter, fall colored tissue paper squares and paint to decorate a variety of leaves, each as unique as the child creating it;)
The infant and toddler classrooms at our local child care center created these cute turkeys from their cute little hand prints and footprints on card stock.
The toddlers also made these lovely string pumpkins by cutting string, soaking the strings in dilute glue and then placing the glue soaked strings in a muffin tin and shaking on some glitter while they were still wet. They added a little, green felt stem and looped string through to allow it to hang.
The preschool classroom decorated clothespins by painting the top brown and attaching a beak, eyes, red snoods, feathers and a pipe cleaner for hanging.
The child care center director gave Choices for Children this great idea. She took scraps of burlap cut from a coffee bean sack and glued to white card stock. She said she used A LOT of glue and then covered the sheets with wax paper and placed heavy object on them so they dried flat. At this point, we took the sheets and cut them into circles. Since the back of the circles were white, we brushed them with wet coffee grounds (how appropriate) to give the paper a more neutral color.
We used 2" styro foam balls and cut them in have with a bread knife. The children painted them brown. While the brown bodies were drying, we had them glue the feathers in an arc shape. When the bodies were mostly dry, the glued the body over the feathers. We used foam glue for this but we aren't sure this is necessary. The finishing touches were added by gluing on eyes and an orange felt triangle for a beak.
This particular bird had the burlap painted brown as well, per the artists desire.
We also purchased some blank canvas and black board hearts at out local craft store to allow the children to use tempera paints or oil pastels to design a heart. We then used jute and wooden beads to finish it off.
We also provided plastic needles and craft yarn to some of the older kids to try their hand at embroidery.
Several trees will be placed throughout our county with instructions. There will be three options to donate based upon the ornament selected. 1) Purchase a Board game, Book or Ball for an age range listed. 2) Go to the project's Amazon wish list to purchase from a list of Board games, Books and Balls. 3) Make a cash donation.
Our children and parents had a great time participating in this project and we have great hopes this project with spread happiness to our local families, both the givers and the receivers.
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