Nature Mobile

My daycare children enjoy spending time outside every day.  They also love to collect items from nature.  Most of the time I send the rocks, leaves and pinecones home, but sometimes it is nice to do a craft with their nature treasures.

We decided to make a mobile with our last collection of leaves and acorns. The kids wanted to use sticks, leaves, pinecones, acorns, ground cherry husks and a piece of birch bark.  That squirrel was so friendly I think he wanted to come home with us too!

I used my hot glue gun to glue the sticks in a letter X position. Then I had the children wrap yarn around the middle.

We used thread to hang the nature items to the sticks.  I tied the thread onto the stem of the ground cherry husk and then added a blob of hot glue to secure it.

The leaves were tricky to tie because the children wanted them to hang one above the other on the thread.  Thank goodness for glue.

I would suggest using a glass to balance the sticks as you tie on each item. Previously, the children were taking turns handing me items and holding the sticks for me. The ever moving sticks added a whole other element of difficulty when using thin thread!

Here is our finished product.  The group decided to hang it in the window of our playroom.  It is a nice reminder of our nature walk to feed the birds and squirrels.

May the treasures of nature bring joy to your home.