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Math Mom's STEM Lab: Packing Material Pine Tree Project

By Mary George December 19, 2017

'Tis the season of Amazon shipments and halls decked with piles of discarded packing material. Toss in some bored kids, hopped up on sugar cookies, relentlessly asking to build a  fort out of the very boxes that Daddy is trying to wrestle into the fireplace, and you have the perfect recipe for a "Mommy and me" pre-holiday meltdown.

Resist the urge to reach for the Prozac and tackle the recycling pile instead. With a few scraps art materials, some glue, and a little holiday luck, the kids will be busy long enough to buy you some precious packing/baking/decorating time.

This Activity Can Help to Enhance: 
Counting skills, cutting skills, proportion, and geometric/spatial thinking

Cost: 
$0 — negligible

Materials
  • Recycled Packing/Shipping Materials (foam, cardboard, tissue paper, felt)
  •  Decorations (yarn, ribbon, pipe cleaner, cotton balls, pom-poms, glitter, construction paper, pine cones, paint or stickers)
  • Liquid Glue
  • Child-safe Scissors

Steps
  1. Cut foam or cardboard into concentric shapes. (We used foam squares for ease in cutting for little kids, but triangles, circles, hearts, and stars would work well too.) 
  2. Stack shapes from largest (base) to smallest using glue.
  3. Get creative with decorating your trees.

Activity Enhancement Ideas

  • Build a forest of pines in all shapes and sizes.
  • Cut materials into circles, stars or hearts to glue into a wreath shape.
  • Use white foam or cardboard for a snow effect. Cardboard boxes that are white on one side, brown on the other are perfect for a "frosty" look (stack brown side down, white side up.)
  • Stack squares of bubble wrap cut into shapes and color individual "bubbles" with a marker for ornaments. Light shining through will create a prism effect.
  • Build a tree using alternating dark green and light green felt. (I actually saw one on sale at TJ Maxx for $12.99, but your kids could make one for Grandma for free!)
  • Use the same number of decorations as the number of days to Christmas and either add or remove one each day.


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Before becoming a full-time mom, Mary George spent a decade working as a technology analyst for the Gilder Technology Report (published by Forbes) and later served as president of Gilder Publishing, LLC., in Great Barrington. She was the longtime producer the internationally celebrated Gilder/Forbes Telecosm Conference and went on to co-found Chasing George, LLC, the company that developed and produced The Berkshire Forum at the Colonial Theatre in September 2010. A former high school math and physics teacher, she studied Engineering at Providence College and holds a degree in mathematics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Mary resides in the Berkshires with her husband, Chris, and their two children.