Activity: Fingerpaint Christmas Tree

Remember when we did the fingerprint tree for fall? Afterwards I realized it would have been easier for Eli if I had drawn an outline of a tree for Eli to put fingerprints inside, since he couldn't understand the concept of clustering the prints up top to form a tree. The colors were beautiful though and it turned out great anyway (with the help of mom). Anyway, that gave me the idea to do this for Christmas season:

1. Draw an outline of a Christmas tree.
2. Put colorful fingerprints inside to make "ornaments" and "lights".

I let Eli do it on his own this time, and it actually turned out a lot like I had imagined when I planned the activity. He did ask me to do a few prints so a few of those dots are mine, but overall it's his own creation! (click on pictures to view larger)

set up and ready to be painted!
Eww!

dirty fingers! (actually, I had already started to wipe them off)

There was a little bit of an episode with Eli trying to show off his work to the camera. He wouldn't listen about the paper being wet and he ended up with wet paint in his face and a frustrated mom. But here we are...

So colorful and pretty! A few oopses outside the tree, but he did pretty good.

Eli loves when things match, so he wanted to put it next to our Christmas tree to make a match!