Lend a Hand

What You Need:

• White paper
• Green tempera paint
• Large paintbrush
• Glitter glue (4, or more colors)
• Metallic paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Glue
• Construction paper (brown)

What You Do:

1. Ask your child to count their fingers out loud from one to five. 
2. Help your child to paint their hand and press it in the center of the paper to leave a handprint. Turn the paper so the fingertips are pointing down.
3. Have them cut out a base for their tree from the construction paper and glue it in place under the fingertips.
4. Encourage your child to choose one color of the glitter glue to begin with and create five lines of garland with it on their "tree." They should count each line of garland aloud as they're creating them. Repeat this with another color of glitter glue.
5. Have your child create five Christmas ornaments, each with a different color glitter glue. Repeat this process again with as many colors as they like, counting each ornament as they create it, and changing colors when they reach the number five.
6. Askthem to draw and cut out a five-pointed star using the metallic paper. Glue it on the top of the tree.
7. Have your child finish off the project by writing the year at the bottom of the tree on the construction paper using the glitter glue. Alternatively, they can write their name to personalize their tree.