Geometric Trees Advent Calendar Forest: Hoarder Inspiration or Desperation, Story #17

Geometric Trees Advent Calendar Forest:  Hoarder Inspiration or Desperation, Story #17 or Creative Outlets, Story #2

I found this in the Whole Foods newsletter!  It's tried and true by a teacher!

Geometric Tree Advent Calendar via the Etsy blog, story by Diana Stainton of Pygmy Cloud
 with directions here

As you can see, this is a super cute and clever project with all kinds of potential for teachable moments in it!  Even mr oz finds himself saying, "cuteness overload" when I show him one of my finished trees!

However, I did start thinking about this project on November 10th when I first saw it at Whole Foods, but rushed over it for the coupons.  The next day, I did browse and carefully look over all 9 DIY crafts and noticed it was affiliated with Etsy!

Soon I found myself collecting all the materials.  The first thing I decided to modify was the candy because the little ones I know eat plenty of it and exchanged them for interactive activities that build on each other. 

I also had to modify the glue use and then the stencils for numbering.  I've lost count on how much green construction paper, glitter construction paper, poster board I've used so far and have moved on to using mega huge green poster board.

And so far I've completed up to Day 10, but I did need bigger geometric trees and made several of my own templates to fit my surprises in them.  And one of the little ones has a birthday on the 25th too, so I had to make a mega mega tree!

 Here are my first trees!

My Advent Forest got a little complicated because one of the little ones is female and the other a male and it wasn't easy finding unisex trinkets or actually in the beginning I didn't even think about it.

and here are the surprises in Day 1

I made the bracelet and the necklace, but the acorn gumball capsules via JunkDrawerLoveEtsy, here and here

Here are some suggestions to help your forest grow a little faster:

1.  Decide on the 24 items beforehand and I'm including the the BIG DAY gift too, so 25, plus a birthday gift.  It gets more complicated if you decide to make one for a girl and a boy and also, the other reason why I made bigger tree templates was so that two treats could fit in one tree.

Also, if you are building teachable moments, it's best to think out the order in which they will be opened too!

By the time I figured out how many trees I'd actually need my head was spinning, so I decided to make bigger trees, so two or more things could fit in them and they can take turns opening trees on a daily basis.  I'd love to share the bigger templates, but have no idea how to do that online.

I did try to enlarge it on a copier, but I need trees bigger than 8 x 11 paper.

The glitter puff balls crack me up and remind me of a Dr. Seuss forest!  The pink puff is for girls and the blue one for boys.  They are kept on with double stick foam circles.

2.  After you figure out how many trees you need and which three sizes to use, cut out as many as you can in one size in one fatal swoop. They don't have to be cut perfectly to stand and children are quite forgiving.

3.  It is worth scoring each one with a ruler.  I used a pen that ran out of ink and a mechanical pencil tip.

4.  Instead gluing the bottom tabs closed, I used glitter tape.  It's a lot faster and I didn't have to wait the drying time.

5.  I used glitter stickers for numbers, but didn't plan that well ahead either.  Luckily I had a box of foam numbers with plenty of red and green numbers.  

In hindsight, even though I love the look of the gold stenciled numbers that add a retro fun touch, To save time, I'd skip the stencil and the stickers and free hand all the numbers using a fat tipped gold or silver marker.

Yesterday I went shopping for the last of the trinkets and educational toys and found glitter rhinestone stickers with enough numbers on them.  They are a little small, but shiny.  If you would like me to list them, let me know and I will over the weekend.

mr oz calculated the amount of numbers I'd need for one set of Advent trees and sorted them for me.  I've saved the information, but can't find it now.  LOL, it's lost in my Advent hoard!

6.  I also wrote in holiday greetings, notes, wishes and directions on the inside of the trees, especially if "seek adult assistance" would be necessary due to including an old fashioned hot cocoa recipe my Father would make for us on rainy days and we'd make for Santa on Christmas eve and help addressing and placing the stamp properly on the envelope to Santa.

And to include their mini thank you notes with their parents thank yous in snail mail after the holidays.  And perhaps helping to choose and donate money saved in the "tree bank" to a charity of their choosing and helping with choices.

7.  In the end, I hope I have enough time to decorate them more with self adhesive rhinestone stickers, left over gold and pink glitter tape and perhaps use more washi tape to secure certain places to assure there's no peeking or sneaking!

Tree number 3 is a special "tree bank" and has a slot in the back of it to donate coins and bills and inside I wrote about talking to your parents about various chores to do and help out for the coming holidays for a "special donation" allowance to add to the bank daily.  It's made from a recycled white mailing envelope and a green glitter puff as a reminder of money.

One of the interactive activities is a simple paper chain garland that I pre cut for them in three different colors, so they could plan ahead and make a pattern and then join both to make a longer garland to decorate their mantel or tree.

One of the Days has a glitter glue stick in it, but this activity may be a "seek assistance" because even third graders have a difficult time keeping them glued and waiting for them to dry.  As a classroom teacher, a lot of paper clips were used to hold them closed while the glue dried!  As you can see I stapled mine, but that won't work in the classroom unless one has 20 staplers handy with plenty of staples!

My students loved to make patterned paper chains and loved to "show and tell" their patterns or make it into a guessing game.  Can you name my pattern?  It decorated their desks, chairs, bulletin boards, our faux fireplace mantel, door, etc.  

Teach them how to cut the paper themselves by folding it and cutting on the fold lines.  It's a good fractions lesson too!

Lastly here are some of the surprises and goodies I've planned for them!  I'll list some of them in order by day:

1.  bubble gum machine jewelry handmade by me.  The bracelets have already sold, but the gumballs are here and the necklaces for older boys are here and for necklaces for girls here.

2.  fingerstache temporary tattoo , have a Santa mustache like him in his younger days!

3.  small magnifying glass - my students loved these and would inspect all kinds of things with them!   Oopsy, it's already out of order, Day 3 is the bank for others less fortunate.  I'll fix it later.

4.  glow in the dark insect: inspect it with your magnifying glass and try experiments, like does it really glow and for how long if you expose it to light for an hour or all day long and which light works better, light bulb light (artificial) or sun light (natural)?

5.  pirate treasure chest with googly eyes in it to use later.  See how long they can keep them without losing them for Activity Day #? which is later down the road  Pirate Tooth Chests are on reserve at the moment.

6.  Multi point pencil.  Remember these?  The pencils that never need sharpening, but are actually a teacher nightmare because students play with them more than writing with them.   This is used for many of the following activities.

7.  Just Say No memo pad tablet:  Start your "Go Wild Mega Wish List" today!  Dream BIG and write every wish down or draw it or both!  See if you can reach past 100!  Add that wishes are not always tangible items, but intangible ones too!  Like seeing faraway family for the holidays, peace on earth for all mankind, or enough food for the world for proper growth and happiness, etc.  

Basically I turn my "worries" into a wish list that I can turn into a goal or dream to act on!  Many students love this idea and it's a good way to teach outlining a (business or dream) plan and implementing it in small steps, but as a third grade standard, it's called something else I can't remember at the moment.

8.  Miracle Fish Fortune Teller: if you don't think the fortunes on the back are age appropriate it doesn't matter, just give them the fish!  Everyone loves that fish, especially most children.  They just like to see it wiggle and squirm like a real fish!  Have them try and figure out how it works and then ask their parents or ask me!

9.  Tooth locket necklace: for anyone missing their two front teeth this Christmas!  Here's Elmo singing it on U tube here or learn it here with the 1955 version with Spike Jones here!  It's the version that's closest to my memory of the song.

10.  Crayons to color in your drawings of your wish list or decorate it.

I'm out of time, so I'll finish the list another time.  Tomorrow?

Hoarder Inspiration:  I'm having a good time with this project and it has obviously put in me in teacher mode to the max!  I've spend weeks, days and hours preparing this Advent Forest and it's been a lot of fun and I've spent a lot of time on it without even realizing how much time has flown by!

It's given me a healthy productive alternative to my random hoard shopping and quite frankly I've realized I don't have time to shop or window shop if I want to get this project completed by it's due date.

Hoarder Desperation:  Well, I suppose if there is a down side it's that I need to plan projects better and to plan them out first before I buy random things I think I'll need later!  but it sure was fun buying Christmas educational items randomly, however a little tough on the wallet.  I'll be listing the unused items or some came in packs larger than I needed so I'll list those too.

I did do some "purposeful" shopping yesterday with a list made from my plans and it did feel good to know that I was going to use what I buy right off and it took a whole lot less time to shop, so I could have more time for the Advent Forest!

What other Advent Calendar projects have you seen "out there?"  This is the first one I've ever been interested in making and would like to try it again next year, but start in October!  And I'd like to make one for my parents too!

UPDATE: Wed, 27 Nov 2013, Click here for Part 2 of my Advent Forest that includes Day 11-17.

Thank you Whole Foods for not only providing me with good tasting gluten free organic foods because that combination is not easy to find and is easier on my allergies!  But what a surprise it was to find 9 DIY Christmas projects in the coupon newsletter with the Geometric Tree Advent Calendar catching my eye!  And even more surprised to find it was affiliated with Etsy!

Thank you Etsy for not only helping me disperse my hoard out into the free world, but for helping me find alternative healthier more productive ways to spend my time, instead of random destress retail therapy to helping me find more "purposeful" shopping.

Thank you US, France, Chez Republic and Ukraine for supporting my Hoarder Rehab and The Destiny of Things!

Click on the shop names to visit my hoard listed daily: HoarderRehab,  The Destiny of Things and VintageToGoEtsy and now JunkDrawerLoveEtsy!  There are about 101 items listed on JunkDrawerLoveEtsy and will be listing 1-3 new things there daily and 1-2 items at the other shops!  Thanks for looking!  Maybe you'll find something to take home and share your story too!

Many items I used for my Advent Forest are at all four shops, but mainly from The Destiny of Things and JunkDrawerLoveEtsy.  Send me an email, if you are interested and I'll assist you or look around and see what you find.

Here's the list again, in case you want to get some ideas and I'd love to hear your ideas: tooth locket necklaces, treasure chests, fingerstache temporary finger mustache, gumball containers, mini marker set, wiggle eyes, Just Say No memo pad tablets, Miracle Fortune Fish, mini kawaii cute figurine erasers, mini jingle bells and more at HoarderRehab,  The Destiny of Things,  VintageToGoEtsy and JunkDrawerLoveEtsy!

UPDATE: Wed, 27 Nov 2013, Click here for Part 2 of my Advent Forest that includes Day 11-17.

"The best way to make my dreams come true is to wake up." --- Paul Valery