We loved our Swirly Ornaments holiday crate from Kiwi Co., and the kit for Little Tree turned out to be just as wonderful. The project set the stage for a festive mood inside our apartment on a drizzly December morning. Read on!

To start making the tree, we first needed to do some math, dividing the kit’s green pipe cleaners into two equal piles. This was a neat way to introduce Travis to counting out two sets of something, just as you would for dealing out cards in a game, for example.

Cut the pipe cleaners from one pile in half, and leave the others long.

Insert the provided wooden stick into the round wooden stand.

Starting with the long pipe cleaners, wrap around the stand.

Repeat with the short pipe cleaners. Travis loved the wrapping, and insisted on doing so himself for each one.

Adult step: snip the pipe cleaners at an angle, so your tree is a triangle shape. Travis was really psyched to see our fake tree in the same tapered shape as our real tree.

Peel the backing off a provided star sticker, and attach at the top of the tree.

Next up, thread on the provided beads and bells as ornaments. “Which are ornaments and which are lights?” Travis wanted to know.

Good question, but either way, all beautiful!

To make the base, use any round bowl to trace a circle onto the provided red felt.

Cut out and decorate with the provided gold glitter glue.

Travis was equally delighted by the “presents” that can go under the tree – two wooden cubes, onto which we glittered-glued pom poms.

You can set your tree out as a pretty decoration, and we also plan to leave it alongside cookies and non-dairy milk for Santa on Christmas Eve! It’s also the perfect size to be a play tree for your child’s stuffed animals.

To round out our festive morning, we made hot cocoa and added in a cute Snowman-themed spelling lesson from Education.com.

This fun picture word match was a great way to cuddle up inside during the cold winter months and practice Travis’s spelling skills. For more spelling activities and printables like this check out Education.com!

In sum, we had all the makings of a cozy winter morning.