Advent Sun Calendar: Day 14, "Winter Sun Catchers"

I'm excited to share our winter sun catchers with you! Aren't they pretty? I'm actually quite enamored by them and love even more how easy they were to make. Yet with everything we do, I think the experience that went along with collecting things and all the conversations had were even more sweet then the beautiful result shown here. With that said, let me fill you in on how we came to make these.

Yesterday our calendar led us to a discussion on the topic of coniferous vs. deciduous trees. Now for an age group between 1 -4, those are pretty big words! So we had fun trying to pronounce those for sure, but the laughing led to some attention thrown my way and allowed me to continue the thought. No small feat with little ones! I pointed towards the Christmas tree and told them it was in the coniferous group. We then ran to the window and looked out back. We wanted to see if we could find any other trees that looked like our Christmas tree and were still green. We spotted a handful of green amongst all the bare branches. This was enough to distinguish between the two groups of trees that had been written on their tag in the Calendar this morning.

I showed them the sun catchers we had made over the summer and mentioned that we would be making new ones today. We were going to head out in the chilly weather to see if we could find needles like the one on our Christmas tree so we could make our project (and maybe learn a thing or two along the way!). My son now calls them our Christmas Tree Catchers. Perfect.

I also like to think of this project as deconstructing the Christmas tree - both literally and metaphorically. The sun catchers take the tree and align it with the light streaming through the windows. Just as I am trying to overlay the Winter Solstice with the alternate meanings of Christmas this year. Both having such a strong tie to the "coming light".

To make these little gems I gathered the following materials:

- a pretty pine needle collection

- any size lids from canning jars ( I used smaller ones )

- contact paper or laminate sheets

- twine or string

- clear tape

- fine tip marker

I laid out the laminate paper on the table and dumped the pine needle collection in two piles, one on either side. Both kids had free reign to sort through their piles and fill the sticky surface with as many needles as they could lay down. This only took a few minutes but they had fun with it! I really like the idea of this project being so tactile. We touched all the trees as we were gathering materials and talked about the differences. I wish I had known the names of all of them but maybe that's a project for another day!

After this the kids played at the table with other things as I sealed the clear contact by placing another sheet on top. I then traced the lids and cut out circles to match the size. This process does not have to be exact. You can pop the contact paper in the lids and then just use scotch tape to attach it to the inside of the lid to keep it in place. Before you complete this step however, make sure to tie string around the lids so they are ready to hang.

These make beautiful sun catchers but they also work great hanging anywhere else in the house as well. They would also be cute if you painted the lids but I've never gotten that far. I'm going to try a larger lid tomorrow with some of our left over material because the variety of greens and the textures would look amazing as a bigger display too.

Have fun with this, we sure did. And don't forget to make extra for some handmade gifts!

: )