Winter Trees

Mother Nature gave us a treat today!  The trees, bushes, grass and even fence posts were covered with beautiful ice needles and icicles. 

As I drove to school, I thought about how to take advantage of this Winter wonderland and get the kids' creative juices flowing.

 I decided to take them on a nature walk to view the ice up close.  We created Winter trees using the bottom of a 20 oz soda bottle dipped in white paint and stamped onto the end of our brown branches.  While the paint was wet, we sprinkled glitter over it to give it that sparkling-in-the-sun quality.  The children then used a squeeze bottle filled with red paint to add the red berries that were visible on several of the trees through the ice.