Cheerful Stick Stars

Autumn is such a lovely time for a ramble in the woods. Come late November, our nature table tends to overflow with found treasures such as stones, colorful leaves, and sticks. Short sticks. Long sticks. Smooth sticks. Rough sticks. Straight sticks. Crooked sticks. Sticks. Sticks. Sticks.

Sometimes I wonder if it is a boy thing or if little girls gather them as well. When I try to return the sticks to the woods or remove them at all, I am met with an impassioned plea from our five year old, "No! That stick is special! Don't throw it out!" Keeping in mind my desire to pick my battles carefully, we keep the sticks and they gather throughout our home with little piles on the porch, in the garage, on the nature table, and several in the boys' room.

Can I just let them sit there? Nooooo. I managed to convince the boys that while the sticks indeed make good swords, dirks, and magic wands, they could also be used to make craftsy things with the sticks. Here is our first go at stick craft.

Cheerful Stick Star Ornaments



Begin by drawing a star shape on a piece of construction or kite paper.
Break the sticks to the size of the drawn lines keeping in mind the intersections,
put glue on the lines and have your child put the sticks on the drawn lines.
Unless you draw a perfect star, figuring out which stick fits on which line will be like a puzzle.

Let the glue fully dry.
(See how the sticks fit together but do not overlap?)

Cut around the star and use a needle to thread string through a point
in the star and hang it in a  window.  It really is cheerful and the
boys are proud to see it hanging for all to see.

 

We are going to make several using kite paper to decorate our Christmas tree and surely the grandparents need some as well.

 

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