These scavenger hunts are so easy to make and so fun to use! The best part about the magnifying glass, is that it extends the amount of time children spend outdoors searching for items! I guarantee this will be the most engaged your child has ever been with a scavenger hunt. The magnifying glass helps children focus their attention on the objects right in front of them and they love getting an extra close look, through the magnifying glass. 

You can also use the printable without a real magnifying glass. The cut out by itself is a great focal point for imaginative play and learning! Either way, these are fun and engaging leave no trace activities for kids.

What’s included in this Nature Scavenger Hunt Printable Packet?!

There are 18 scavenger hunt printables included in this packet. The scavenger hunts include: general nature, signs of spring, signs of summer, signs of fall, signs of winter, summer flower, spring flower, garden, leaf, seed, insect, color, gratitude, tally mark, cloud, mushroom, animal tracks, and alphabet. Seventeen of the eighteen scavenger hunt printables come in both black & white and color options and one comes in just black & white, for a total of 35 pages!

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Find the Printable for this Activity on TPT or Etsy! 

How to Make the Magnifying Glass?

The magnifying glass is easy to make! Laminate the cardstock and cut out the lens part of the printable.

Last, tape the edges of the credit card sized magnifying glass to the back of the printable! The magnifying glasses are made of plastic and durable.

Below, you can see how well the magnifying glass works! It’s even more fun to use outside in nature. 

Here’s a Couple of ways to use your Nature Scavenger Hunt Printables:

This example shows the printable with a real magnifying glass and clothespins are used to check off items found. Start with clothespins at the top and bottom of the printable and move them to the side as you find items.

This example does not have a real magnifying glass and a dry erase marker is used to cross off pictures of items found. The dry erase marks can be easily erased when finished. Try sticking one velcro circle on the scavenger hunt and other velcro circle on the dry erase marker. This is a great way to keep your supplies all in one spot. When the marker is not in use, just stick it right to the velcro on the scavenger hunt

Here’s a Peak at all of the Scavenger Hunts!

Before we look at the scavenger hunts, I want you to think about a few things. I did not add instructions because I want children to use it in a way that works best for them! To keep the scavenger hunts fresh and fun, try the clothespins one day and dry erase markers on another. Use a real magnifying glass for one scavenger hunt and go without it for a different one. Children will like to use these sheets in different ways and that’s ok!

A few of the scavenger hunts, like mushrooms and clouds, have scientific names. These can be difficult to pronounce and I wouldn’t expect a child to be able to read or remember all of them. That’s also ok! This is all about exposure and having fun.

If you aren’t having any luck finding specific items on the list, try searching for the colors of the items. For example, you can look for the colors of leaves on the leaf scavenger hunt instead of the particular leaves! Make this work for you. 

Now lets get to the scavenger hunts! These scavenger hunts are perfect for seasonal activities! Check out the spring, summer, fall and winter scavenger hunt printables. 

Here are a couple of scavenger hunts that are great for any time of year! For the tally mark scavenger hunt, use a dry erase marker to make tally marks on the laminated printable. This is great for reinforcing early math skills while being outdoors!

The animal track and mushroom printables are fun for adventurous little explorers! Try looking for animal tracks in mud or snow! And remember, don’t touch or eat mushrooms because they could be poinsonous.

These scavenger hunts are fun to try right in your own backyard! Children love spending time in the garden and really enjoy looking for insects and seeds. 

I love these three scavenger hunts! The alphabet scavenger hunt can be used in a couple of different ways: Children can either clip a clothespin on the alphabet letter after they find something in nature that starts with that letter or write the word next to the corresponding letter. For example, if a child finds an apple, they would write “apple” next to the “Aa.” I find an ultra fine dry erase marker works best in these small writing spaces. 

The gratitude scavenger hunt is fun to try around Thanksgiving or Valentine’s Day. And the color scavenger hunt is fun for children of all ages!

The alphabet and color scavenger hunt printables can be used indoors on a rainy day!

Here’s what you’ll need to make these nature scavenger hunt printables!

Supplies:

• Nature Scavenger Hunt Printables available on TPT or Etsy
• Cardstock or printer paper- I recommend cardstock for a more durable work mat. 
• Laminator machine
• Scissors
• Credit Card Sized Magnifying Glass
• Dry Erase Markers  or Clothes pins(I like mini clothes pins for this activity, but regular sized will work too!)
• Velcro Dots– These are completely optional! They are great to stick on the scavenger hunt printable and dry erase marker to keep all of your objects together. When the marker is not in use, just stick it right to the velcro on the scavenger hunt.

Now that you have all of your supplies, it’s time to get outside and start exploring!

These are great for every season, even winter! The snow looked beautiful magnified through the lenses. We could have looked at it for hours!

We preferred to go without the magnifying glass for the cloud hunt. The clouds looked really neat framed in the magnifying glass!

Pin this to save it for later!

I hope you try these nature scavenger hunt printables! I promise, your little learners will love it as much as my boys and preschoolers.

∼Tara

Looking for more fun printables for kids?! Check out:

4 Ways to Use Story Stones in the Classroom

Color Activities for Kids with See-Through Lenses

The post Nature Scavenger Hunt Printables appeared first on Little Pine Learners.

I saw a beautiful post circulating on Facebook with sticks that look like dancing people. Have you seen it yet? It’s such a simple idea, but so imaginative and such a fun project! I was instantly inspired to make a craft that recreates this photo and couldn’t wait to try it with my boys!

Ready to give this stick craft a try!? Here’s what you’ll need..

Supplies:

• • A variety of flowers
  • Cardboard– These cardboard sheets are a convenient option if you don’t have any to reuse. 
  • A sharp pencil to poke holes for the flowers
  • Tape

This post contains Affiliate links for your convenience.

RELATED: Check out Stick and Stone Constellations

Here’s How to Make this Stick Craft:

Step One:

Head outside and search for sticks that look like people. This craft is great because sticks are available anytime of year!

We searched the ground for sticks and found a ton of fallen branches! We have looked for stick people before for our Stick Man activity, but loved this idea of searching for dancing stick people. Once you find a stick. you might need to pick off a couple of little sticks to make your person. They can be hard to find at first and then all of a sudden, they seem to be everywhere! We even found stick animals!

My boys couldn’t resist playing with the stick people. Our sticks were pretty thin and fragile, so they had to be gentle with their dancing pieces of nature. 

Step 2:

Now that you have a collection of stick people, grab a piece of cardboard. We used a long piece of white poster board to make the sticks stand out. You can tape your stick people right on the cardboard. 

Step 3:

We decided to add flower heads to our stick people, so I poked holes right above the sticks to thread the flower stems through. My boys taped the stems to the back of the piece of cardboard. 

This stick craft turned out so cute! My boys had fun mimicking the sticks and are now constantly searching for more dancing sticks to add to their collection. This is such a simple and fun way to connect children with nature and get them outside!

I love this stick craft so much that we might need to find a bigger piece of poster board to show off our dancing nature collection!

Pin it and save it for later!

I hope you give this simple stick craft a try! I promise, your little nature lovers will love this one.

∼Tara

Need more simple nature ideas?! Check out:

Adorable Bat Nature Craft

Sticky Scavenger Hunt

The post Dancing Nature Craft for Kids appeared first on Little Pine Learners.

I try a lot of nature activities with my boys, but only share my biggest hits here! Our favorite activities are usually easy to prep, fun to play and create with, and can be reused multiple times. This activity checks all of those boxes!

We brought it along during our last nature walk and my boys continued to play with it when we got home. They loved using the box to practice counting, organizing and sorting, and now it’s displayed on their dresser. There are a few holes empty, so they are already talking about getting outside and finishing their box tomorrow!

 Ready to make a one!? Here’s what you’ll need..

Supplies:

• A cardboard box
• Scissors
• Sharp Pencil
• Pieces of nature
• Twine

This post contains Affiliate links for your convenience.

RELATED: Cardboard Nature Display

Here’s How to Make the Nature Poke Box:

Step 1:

If you plan on taking it on nature walks, I suggest putting some kind of handle on your box. I created twine handles and secured them by tying a knot on the inside of the box. The random piece of string you see there is from the knot on the other side. The string was a little longer over there. 

Also, I suggest cutting out the inside flaps, so you only have one layer to poke through. I did not do this, so we had issues poking nature pieces through a few of the holes. 

Step 2:

You can skip this step if you would like, but the box I had was a bit of a mess. I decided to add a piece of white card stock to clean up the top of the box. I placed the card stock on the top of the box and creased it for cutting lines. 

Now glue the card stock to the box top and poke holes with a sharp pencil. 

It’s time to head outside and search for the perfect pieces of nature to display! The colors are starting to change in Wisconsin, so we found some beautiful leaves to display. 

The handles were perfect for carrying! The boys were so proud of their portable display and it got a lot of compliments from people walking past us!

This is the perfect activity for building fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. 

The next time your kids need a little nudge to get outside, give this activity a try! They will love building their very own nature display. 

Pin it and save it for later!

I hope you give this simple nature activity a try! I promise, your little nature lovers will love this one.

∼Tara

Need more nature crafts ideas?! Check out:

Nature Collection Journal

Easy Porcupine Nature Craft

The post Nature Poke Box appeared first on Little Pine Learners.

We’ve been sharing a bunch of dandelion activities this spring and I have a couple more ideas for you! Today, I want to share our dandelion name activity. I love this one because it took me 2 minutes to set up and kept my little guy busy for a good 30 minutes. It’s not easy for those little hands to thread dandelions on the board, so this was a good challenge for him! 

My son has been writing his name in all capital letters, so this is a great way to get him thinking about just capitalizing the first letter of his name. 

Ready to make these name boards!? Here’s what you’ll need..

Supplies:

• Dandelions
• Cardboard– These cardboard sheets are a convenient option if you don’t have any to reuse. 
• Something sharp to puncture holes in the cardboard- I used a sharp pencil. 
• Scissors or X Acto Knife– These are excellent for cardboard crafts! They are very sharp ONLY for adult use. 

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RELATED: Check out Magical Pressed Flower Lanterns

Here’s How We Made Our Name Activity Boards:

Step 1:

Cut a piece of cardboard into whatever shape you choose! You could cut a star, heart, square, or circle. We decided to keep it simple went with a rectangle since we just made the dandelion shape boards.

I wrote his name in pencil and poked holes along the pencil line with a sharp pencil. I poked the pencil all the way through to make larger holes. This makes it a little easier for threading the dandelion stems. 

Step 2:

Invite your child to make his or her name! I encouraged Leo to start the dandelions at the top line of the “L” just like he was writing his name.

It’s easier if you work with shorter stems because they stay in the board easier when it’s pressed against the ground. Leo had to tear a bit more of the dandelion stem pictured below. You can also tape the stems to the back of the board like we did with our dandelion frame activity. 

We have thousands of dandelions in our yard right now, but Leo liked running around the yard searching for the perfect ones for his name!

He was so proud of his name activity when it was complete!

He carried it around the yard for the rest of the night, setting it against trees while he played! I couldn’t help but think that it would make a cute sign for a birthday party!

When finished with the name activity, you can take the dandelions out and save if for wildflower season!

Pin it and save it for later!

I hope you give this simple name activity a try! I promise, your little nature lovers will love it as much as my boys.

∼Tara

Need more simple nature ideas?! Check out:

Double-Sided Nature Crown Board

25+ Nature-Inspired Summer Activities for Kids

The post A Simple Flower Name Activity appeared first on Little Pine Learners.

My four year old is really into learning his letters and sounds these days! We’ve been homeschooling for about a month now and are quickly running out of activities from his virtual learning packet.

I’m kinda over the quick worksheets from school and other activities that are over in 5 minutes. The effort it takes to get a four year old interested in a worksheet that will only last a few minutes is just not worth it for us! So here is a fun alternative alphabet match activity that young children can revisit throughout the week! Children get the chance to get creative and do their work whenever they choose. 

Ready to move on from naming alphabet letters? Try this beginning sound stone game!

Let’s give this alphabet match activity a try! Here’s what you’ll need..

Supplies:

• Roll of paper
• Alphabet rocks
• Markers– These are scented markers!

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Here’s What We Did:

Step 1:

Make alphabet letter rocks and draw bubble letters on a large sheet of white paper. This is really the only step!

I wrote the letters on the rocks with a sharpie and did my best with the bubble letters. No they are not perfect, but my four year old doesn’t care! Make your bubble letters on the larger side to make this a developmentally appropriate activity for those little hands. You can choose to write the entire alphabet or just the letters your child is still learning. 

Next…

Now invite your child to try the alphabet match activity. I showed my son how to find an alphabet letter one at a time, name it, match it, and color it! Children can also name an object that starts with that letter sound.

My son liked to write the letter first inside the bubble letter. 

These bubble letters look easy to color, but the curves and quick directional changes are a challenge for young kids! We talked about slowing down, using small strokes when coloring, and not leaving a lot of white spaces in the bubble letters. 

Along with working his fine motor skills, he also worked his gross motor skills. He practiced stabilizing his core and crossing the midline when coloring letters towards the other end of the paper. 

My son took a break from this activity after coloring in about six letters. That turned out to be about 30 minutes of fun and engaging work for him! We kept this set up out for the rest of the week and he visited it whenever he felt like it. He loved working on his alphabet match activity banner!

Pin it and save it for later!

I hope you give this simple nature activity a try! I promise, your little nature lovers will love it as much as my boys.

∼Tara

Need more nature craft ideas?! Check out:

Work on Spatial Awareness With This Simple Nature Shape Puzzle

A Simple Stone Activity to Try Today!

The post Alphabet Grab and Color Activity appeared first on Little Pine Learners.

Believe it or not, this activity was inspired by a beautiful photoshoot set up from by talented friend Melissa over at Little x Little Photography. She had beautiful fresh flowers taped to the wall and I was immediately inspired to recreate it at home and turn it into an engaging and adorable kids activity!

We loved this activity so much! It’s so easy to set up and it kept my four year old busy for a long time. I knew this activity would be a hit when my son saw the nature invitation and said, “Wow! I like what you did with those flowers! They look so cool on the wall like that!” He was intrigued right away and ready for the challenge to free the flowers.

Ready to give it a try? Here’s what you’ll need…

Supplies:

• Masking tape
• Flowers- could be from a bouquet or fresh from the garden
• Little glass jars

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RELATED: Check out 10+ Simple and Beautiful Stone Activities for Kids

Here’s What We Did:

There really aren’t any steps to this activity. You just tape the flowers to the wall and set out some little vases. I didn’t put water in the vases just yet, I waited until my son was finished with the activity for that step.

You can introduce the activity by saying, “The flowers are taped to the wall, but need to get in the vases so we can give them some water! Can you try to free the flowers and put them in the vases?”

I promise, kids won’t be able to resist this invitation! Before I could say anything else, Leo was peeling the tape back and putting the flowers in the vases.

This is great fine motor work! As you can see, this requires children to make a pincer grasp when peeling the tape off of the wall. These stems are pretty flat, so peeling the tape off the wall was a bit of a challenge. My little preschooler’s hands got quite the workout by the time he finished the activity!

This is also great hand-eye coordination practice. Placing those little, thin stems in the tiny vases was more of a challenge than I expected!

The fact that the flowers are taped to a vertical surface makes this activity even more important!

This vertical surface activity, gives children the opportunity to:

• strengthen their gross motor muscles in their arms, back and shoulders when removing the tape
• work on bilateral coordination when using one hand to stabilize the flower stem and the other to tear the tape off the wall
• cross the midline when kids take the flowers off the wall and into a vase on the opposite side of the table

The little flowers and vases offer children the opportunity to work on color recognition, patterning, and sorting. Leo also asked me to identify the flowers!

Once he finished getting all of the flowers and leaves off the wall, he moved around the nature pieces until he was happy with his tiny arrangements! We added water to the vases and placed them around our home. They are the sweetest little decorations and a wonderful reminder of this fun activity!

Pin this activity to save it for later!

I hope you give this activity a try! I promise, your little nature lovers will love it as much as my boys.

∼Tara

Looking for more simple and beautiful nature activities?! Check out:

A Simple Stone Activity to Try Today!

Flower Petal Sweep {A Fine Motor Activity}

The post Free the Flowers {Fine and Gross Motor Work} appeared first on Little Pine Learners.

This is one of those SIMPLE activities that you will return to over and over again! It’s the perfect outdoor center for a nature preschool or screen-free activity for home.

It was fun to show my kids that with just a dash of creativity, you can make a flower garden in the middle of winter!

Ready to create a magical snow garden? Here’s what you’ll need….

Supplies:

• Artificial flowers– We got ours from the Dollar Store. You can also find them in craft stores. I cut the stems from the bunch so they were individual flowers. You might want to add Duct Tape to the bottom of the stems if the wire is exposed.
• Flower pots
• Garden Tool Set
• Snow!

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RELATED: Check out Our Favorite Seasonal Nature Activity!

Here’s What We Did:

Step 1:

I set out the flower pots and garden shovels on our tree stumps. My boys loved filling up the flower pots with snow! It was the perfect alternative to dirt:)

Shoveling the snow in the pots is great hand-eye coordination practice!

Leo preferred the scooping method! He just put his flower pot right in the snow and scooped it up.

This kept them busy for a long time and they were having so much fun in the snow! They also loved patting down the snow into the pots. I knew this activity was a hit when they kept saying, “this is the best snow activity!”

Step 2:

Once all of the flower pots were filled with snow, I set out the artificial flowers. I put them on the ground by the tree stumps and they started “planting” their flowers right away!

Before I knew it, the snow gardens were complete. My oldest liked rearranging the flowers in different ways.

They looked so pretty when finished and added a some beautiful color to our yard!

We ended up moving them and they look so nice lined up against our house!

Here are so more ideas for flower play in the winter.

1. Make a flower field in the snow. Kids can just stick flowers right in the snow! No pots or shovels needed.
2. Stick the flowers in the snow before the kids get outside and have them make bouquets of specific colors or amounts.
3. Stick the flowers in the snow around your yard and have kids find them all.
4. Make snow castles with the flower pots and stick the flowers in the castles. So pretty!

Have fun and whatever activity you choose, it will certainly put a smile on your kids’ faces:)

Pin this activity to save it for later!

I hope you give this activity a try and have some fun in the snow! I promise, your little nature lovers will love it as much as my boys.

∼Tara

Looking for more outdoor activity ideas?! Check out:

Creating a Musical Forest

Beaded Sticks

The post Create a Magical Snow Garden appeared first on Little Pine Learners.

We are only a couple weeks into winter and the extra screen time is already creeping in. It can be difficult to pull my boys away from their favorite TV shows so I got creative and thought of a way to get them excited about turning off the TV. My boys are loving the screen-free board, so safe to say IT’S WORKING!

Creating a List of Screen- Free Activities:

Make a list of activities with your kids. It needs to be activities that they are excited about or this board will not work very well;)

Also, take into consideration if you want to be involved in the activities. Do you want these to be independent activities so mom and dad can get a break or do you want to play with your child during the activities?

I aimed for activities that would keep my boys’ entertained for at least 30 minutes. I’ve noticed that they usually stay away from the TV and move on to another activity when they are finished with their scratch off activity.

Here are some screen-free activities we love:

Indoor Activities: board games, puzzles, play dough, magnetic tiles, play with story stones, color, hide and seek, build a fort, paint, kinetic sand, play a card game, build with blocks, make oobleck, wikki stix, water painting, KID’S CHOICE

Outdoor Activities: (we will make a separate board for snow activities) play a sport, cloud gaze, build a bonfire, make a hiking stick and take it to your favorite trail, bird watch, collect sticks, walk the dog, climb a tree, tag, nature walk, count bird nests, hot chocolate hike, make beaded sticks, KID’S CHOICE

Supplies:

• Dish Soap
• Acrylic paint– We used a light blue
• Cardboard or card stock
• Transparent contact paper or packing tape
• Marker

This post contains Affiliate links for your convenience.

Here’s How I Made The Board:

First I wrote the words “screen-free scratch off” on the boards with black Sharpie. I made one for indoor activities and one for outdoor activities. We live in Wisconsin, so I don’t want to have a mix of indoor and outdoor activities on one board only to have the kids scratch and reveal “go on a nature walk” when it’s -30 outside. That’s not going to happen! So we are saving the indoor activities for days when the weather is not cooperating.

Next I traced the bottom of a mason jar to make my circles and chose activities from the list we made together and wrote them in the circles. My kids weren’t in the room for this step because I wanted to keep the activity spots a secret.

Now that your boards are ready, you can cover them with contact paper. You really just need to cover the circles with contact paper, but it seemed much easier to just cover the entire section with the circles.

You can also use packing tape for this step.

Now it’s time to make the scratch off mixture!

It’s so incredibly simple and this stuff really works! I mixed 2 tablespoons of paint with 1 tablespoon of dish soap. That’s it! I used the blue Dawn dish soap, but I don’t think it matters what type you use.

Now, just paint it on the circles. I painted two separate coats to make it nice and thick. As you can see, it doesn’t need to be perfect!

The boys were patiently waiting for the paint to dry and couldn’t wait to test it out! My four year old needed a little help getting it going and then quickly got the hang of it.

My six year old had no problems at all! The paint peeled right off the contact paper, clearly revealing the activity underneath.

**Here’s a tip: If you want to reuse the board, just write your screen-free activities on post-it notes and place them under the contact paper! That way, when you are finished scratching the activities, you can peel those off and move them around to different spots or write completely different activities on new post-it notes! You should be able to use the same contact paper for several rounds.**

Save it for later and Pin it!

I hope you give this activity a try! I promise, your little nature lovers will love it as much as my boys.

∼Tara

Need more screen-free activities?! Check out:

Stick and Stone Constellations

Beaded Sticks

The post DIY Screen-Free Activity Scratch Off Board appeared first on Little Pine Learners.

The winter solstice is a special day that only comes around once a year. It marks the day with the fewest hours of sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere. Many people build special traditions and celebrations around this day to celebrate the first day of winter and welcome back the light!

Are you ready to brighten up the darkest evening of the year with this simple hiking stick?

Here’s what you’ll need….

Supplies:

• Dried orange slices
• Hiking stick
• Tape
• Copper wire fairy lights– We got ours from Target. This is not the exact set we got, but these have the same amount of lights and length of wire. The copper wire twists really easily around the hiking stick.
• Batteries for fairy lights

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RELATED: Check out Glow-in-the-Dark Mummy Hiking Stick

Here’s What We Did:

Step 1:

First you need to dry your orange slices. There are many methods of doing this, but I put them in the oven on a cookie drying rack. Allowing air to move through them via the rack is key! I set the oven for 225 degrees for about 3-4 hours. I have done this several times and for some reason the drying time fluctuates a bit. Just keep an eye on them and take them out once they feel dry.

You can also stick some cloves in your oranges while they are drying. Your house will smell amazing!

Step 2:

Once your oranges are ready to go, you can start assembling your hiking stick! First tape the battery pack at the bottom of the hiking stick.

Step 3:

String the dried orange slices on the fairy lights. The center of the orange provides the perfect threading hole!

Step 4:

Wrap the oranges and fairy lights around the hiking stick. We found it easiest to have one person hold the stick and spin it around while another person held on to the light string and moved it up and down the stick. We moved the oranges around on the light string as we spun the stick so they were all facing the same way and had light peeking through behind the orange slices.

Make sure you wrap the light string tightly so it doesn’t move during your hike!

I was impressed with how well the string of lights stayed in place! They didn’t slide down the hiking stick at all.

We had a great time taking this out for a test run and now the hiking stick is sitting in my boys’ room as a decoration! We will bring it out again for another hike on the winter solstice.

Pin this activity to save it for later!

I hope you give this winter solstice activity a try! I promise, your little nature lovers will love it as much as my boys.

∼Tara

Looking for more winter activity ideas?! Check out:

Winter Small World Play Using Natural Material

Pinecone Nature Confetti Shakers for New Years Eve

The post Winter Solstice Hiking Stick appeared first on Little Pine Learners.

If you have extra boxes laying around during the holiday season, this is the perfect activity to try!

This piece of cardboard is from a display board that I never used. I cut it into smaller pieces with an Exacto knife. Just a few more steps and I had a great Christmas tree activity for my boys at home and preschoolers in my classroom.

We used this Christmas tree board 2 ways! I’ll walk you through both ways below.

Here’s what you’ll need..

Supplies:

• A pice of cardboard- An old box would work fine!
• Pipe Cleaners
• Wooden beads
• Markers

This post contains Affiliate links for your convenience.

RELATED: Check out Beaded Reindeer Antler Sticks

Here’s What We Did:

Step 1:

Draw a Christmas tree on a piece of cardboard. I used a ruler to make my lines, but you don’t have to be as exact. You could also just draw a simple triangle for a tree top!

Step 2:

Poke holes in your cardboard to make it easier to push the pipe cleaners through.

Step 3:

Push your pipe cleaners through and tape them to the back of the piece of cardboard. This will keep the pipe cleaners in place when children thread beads on them. I cut about 5 mini pieces from one long pipe cleaner. You might want to test a bead or two to make sure the pipe cleaner part on the other side is long enough before you tape all of them down.

Step 4:

Make sure all of your pipe cleaners are facing up and set out your beads. This a color matching activity, so I made sure I had the amount of beads my kids needed to match them to the pipe cleaners.

Your Christmas tree activity is ready to go! Now you’re all set to invite your children to match the colors and thread the beads.

This first time we tried this activity, both of my boys had the trees laying flat on a table. They had fun calling out colors and racing to see who would finish first!

As you can see, this is really great for working on those fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

The second time we tried this Christmas tree activity, we hung it on our door with painter’s tape. The beads looked pretty hanging on the picture! I think this would be a nice piece of holiday art to keep on the wall.

This time around, Leo took his time and talked more about the colors. When finished, you can keep the tree hanging or take the beads off for round two!

Which version will you try? Comment below!

Pin this activity to save it for later!

I hope you give this simple Christmas tree activity a try! I promise, your little nature lovers will love it as much as my boys.

∼Tara

Looking to Strengthen Fine Motor Skills?! Check out:

Pine Needle Sweep {A Christmas Fine Motor Activity}

Pine Needle Sensory Writing Tray

The post Color Matching Christmas Tree Activity appeared first on Little Pine Learners.