Wool Wrapped Christmas Tree Ornaments for Kids to Make

These Wool Wrapped Tree Ornaments are fun to make and a great way for young kids strengthen their fine-motor skills

We’ve been having fun making “Christmas tree” Christmas tree ornaments.  What I mean is, we’re making ornaments that look like actual Christmas trees.

Wrapping a length of yarn around an object can be a tricky skill for kids to learn. One hand has to hold the object still while the other hand does the winding. On top of that, they’ll need to get your tension right so the yarn doesn’t slip off while they’re wrapping.

These wool wrapped tree ornaments can help a toddler or preschool begin to grasp the winding process.

We quite often wrap with yarn when we’re crafting, not only because of the skills it teaches, but because it’s inexpensive and the yarn or ribbon adds a colourful touch to whatever we’re making.

Our Twig Star Ornaments, Twiggy Trees, Summer Stars and our Wooly Webs are just a few of our other wrapping and winding activities for kids.

Older kids will love our Yarn Wrapped Initial Ornaments, our Wool Wrapped Stars and these  Yarn Wrapped Twig Tree Ornaments.

Here’s how we made our wool wrapped trees:

Supplies:

• a piece of cardboard (think cereal box)
• wool or yarn (any kind will do)
• paint
• (glitter glue or glitter paint is optional)

Start by cutting a simple triangular Christmas Tree out of cardboard.  Then, cut several V’s into the sides of your triangle, and 2 or 3 more across the bottom.

Now it’s time for the kids to paint their trees.  Some of the hooligans chose regular acrylic craft paints, and some chose metallics.

Use whatever you have on hand.

Don’t worry about sticking to traditional Christmas colours here.

The kids will love it all the more if they’ve chosen their favourite colour for their tree.

It will mean more to you too, in years to come, when they’re all grown up and you’re decking your tree with their quirky, little purple or orange Christmas Tree.

It’s about the process, not the product:

Don’t worry if your child hasn’t completely covered the surface of the item that they’re painting.

It’s tempting to want them to cover it completely.  It’s about the process, the creativity and the learning more than the end result.

I simply ask the child to “tell me when you’re happy with how yours looks”. This way, the child decides when their piece is finished, and what it will look like.

Some children will cover the entire surface while others are quite happy to apply just a few strokes of paint here and there.

That’s ok.

When you give them the opportunity to make these decisions themselves, they’ll feel more in control of their project and they’ll take more pride in what they’ve made, knowing that it looks exactly how THEY wanted it to.

After our paint dried,  we added a coat of glitter glue to a couple of our trees, just for fun, to sparkle them up.

Use a DVD holder as a drying rack:

Check out our new drying rack”.  I”m not exactly sure what this thing is actually supposed to be.  I believe it’s a DVD holder, but it’s perfect for jobs like this one.

And now the fun begins:

Secure a long piece of yarn to the back of your tree with a piece of tape, and start wrapping, letting the yarn “catch” in the notches.

Little ones will find this to be quite challenging, and that’s ok.

Be there to guide them, but encourage them to to as much as they can to learn this new skill.

It may help if you hold the tree for them, as the really young ones tended to use two hands for wrapping: one hand would pass the yarn over the top of the tree, and they would switch hands to bring the yarn underneath, switching again when it was time to bring it back over.

Our youngest crafter today isn’t quite two, and she needed a great deal of help.

I helped her hold the tree with one hand, while my other hand guided hers around and around the tree, all the while we were chanting “aroooound and arooooound and aroooooound”.

She thought that was particularly hilarious.

Once your little one is happy with how much yarn is on their tree, cut the yarn, tape it to the back, punch a hole and you’re ready for hanging!

Aren’t these wool-wrapped ornaments just the cutest?

 

Looking for another easy Christmas craft that kids can make with scraps of yarn?

Check out these lovely Yarn Snowballs by Rainy Day Mum

 

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