The Parable Of The Barren Fig Tree

Luke 13: 6-9

Trees are mentioned in the bible many times. Adam and Eve's apple tree, the barren fig tree, and Zacchaeus's sycamore tree are a few of the most famous. Today we are going to make a 3D tree to go along with any lesson about trees. I once posted a tree craft (found here) using paper bags; however, I did not have any bags on hand this time, so I came up with this alternative to save myself a trip to the store. 

Most of my crafts are targeted toward 1st through 5th graders, but today's craft would also be good for kindergarteners. 

Materials needed:

Cardstock

Tree template (free download here: Front  Back)

Scissors

Glue

Green felt or construction paper

Before Class Prep.:

1. Download and print tree templates onto the front and back of the cardstock, or draw your own. Two pages are needed for each tree/student.

2. Trim the bottom of each page so the tree roots are at the very bottom edge of the page.

3. Cut a rough tree foliage shape around the branches.

4. On half of the pages, cut a long slit from the top middle down to midway on each tree trunk.

5. On the other half of the pages, cut a long slit from the bottom middle to midway up each trunk.

See pictures below. Each tree is formed by sliding together one upper cut tree and one lower cut tree.

I went ahead and put the trees together before class so I did not have to fumble with matching up top cut and bottom cut pages while in class. Once the trees are together they collapse down flat again without having to take them apart. This made it easy to pass out both pages to each child at the same time.

Class Instructions:

1. Give each child two tree pages.

2. Ask the children to take the tree pages apart and decorate. They have the option of coloring the tree leaves or cutting leaves from the felt/construction paper and glueing. 

3. Slide the two pages back together and the tree is complete.

NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!

Zacchaeus and the Sycamore Tree

(Luke 19)

When I first saw this craft on Pinterest, I knew exactly what to do with it!




This craft screams Zacchaeus to me. Click here to see the source for this brilliant craft, Pikadilly Charm. There are plenty of treasures on their site, so please do check them out.

Materials needed:

1 lunch size paper bag per child
Scissors for each child
Good old fashioned Elmer's Glue (glue sticks do not work well for this)
Construction paper (green for summer tree or gold, red, & yellow for fall tree)

Prep. before class:

Fold back the edge of a piece of construction paper about half an inch. Cut leave shapes on fold line. Keep folding paper and cutting shapes until there is a nice size pile.

Alternative: Pikadilly Charm did not precut the leaves as I have done here. They let the kids tear pieces of paper to use as leaves. Next time, I will do it that way as well. The torn paper also made a pretty tree, and I like that fact that 100% of the project is done by the kids that way. I chose to precut because I was concerned about time. In retrospect, it really wouldn't have taken any more time for the kids to hand-tear the leaves.  

Instructions:

1. With Paper bag folded flat, cut slits from the top of bag to about an inch and a half from the folded bag bottom. The closer the cuts end to the bottom of the bag, the shorter the tree trunk will be.

2. Open the bag so it is standing.

3. Twist the uncut portion of bag into a trunk while flattening the bottom of bag to make a platform. 

4. Twist two pieces of cut bag together to make branches until all pieces are twisted...

...like this.

5. Glue leaves into place.

NOTE:  All images, text and printables contained herein are copyright protected. This material is for your personal use only. I encourage you to print or pin from this site whenever you would like as long as it is credited and linked back to EasyBreezySundaySchool.blogspot.com. Failure to link back and credit my site constitutes a copyright violation.  Thanks so much!