Submitted by Monica Autry, Ft. Bragg, North Carolina
Idea posted September 29, 2006
I've done The Littlest Christmas Tree a couple of times. I did it with an entire first grade of about 125 students. I made Christmas tree costumes for the speaking parts, but the other children wore Christmas tree hats they made in art class. Everyone made hats in their art class, and they were precious. The children kept the hats, but I kept the tree costumes. I still have them from ten years ago! We dress up in them at Christmas for "O Christmas Tree" in my classroom.
The tree costumes were made out of posterboard. I added paper ornaments (colored circles) and lots of glitter. They simply hung around students' necks on strings. Poster board reaches to the knees or below for a first grader. They wore gold and silver garland in their hair. The child playing the Littlest Christmas Tree had a plain tree with bits of velcro so the children could decorate her during that last song. You can color the velcro with a green marker, and it blends in. The elves decorated her with pretty ornaments that I had hot glued to a bit of velcro. It worked really well. It's a charming and sweet play that I will probably use again!