Another Size Sorting Christmas Tree

Cut 6 circles of green felt each one slightly smaller than the previous.  You’ll be slipping these over a toilet paper tube, so just make sure they are big enough to do that.  Take the TP tube and cut one end to make a triangle (see picture below).  Cut crosses in your circles to allow for slipping over the TP tube.  The smallest circle will have a slit down the radius to make a cone shape for the tip of the tree. Have child paint tube green.  Let dry. (That said, mine didn’t want to wait, so she did the whole thing with a brown tube, which in retrospect works just as well and leaves out the mess of painting.) Have child find biggest circle first, then next largest, etc. to slip over the tube.  Note from the trenches: it is easier if you tape the top bits together first.  I saw this idea here.  You can decorate this tree with little beads and glue a star on top, but Bear doesn’t want to glue this together because she wants to be able to take it apart and do it again and again. 

Bear doesn’t normally like size sorting, but she has enjoyed this and the other size sorting tree craft.  She has done both without help from me, which goes to show that even though she won’t size sort, she’s picked up what I mean by watching me try to get her to size sort!

I alternated my circles on a lighter and darker green felt so that we could also talk about patterning.