Activity 6: Decorating the Threshold
Activity time: 15 minutes
Materials for Activity
- Colored tissue paper, cut into five-inch squares (ten squares for each flower)
- Green construction paper to cut into leaf shapes
- Markers
- Optional: Leader Resource 1, Leaf Shape
- Pencils and scissors (including left-handed scissors)
- Tape
- Colored ribbon
Preparation for Activity
- Cut tissue paper into five-inch squares. Each flower requires approximately ten squares.
- Print out Leader Resource 1, Leaf Shape on heavy card stock to make a template for tracing and cutting out leaves from green construction paper.
- Optional: Cut leaves out of construction paper in advance. Make sure leaf shapes are large enough for a child to write their name.
- Make sure the threshold you plan to decorate will be the group's to use for the duration of the Creating Home program.
Description of Activity
The children decorate the threshold of the meeting space to focus on this special place of entering and leaving. Each child will make a flower out of tissue paper and write their name on a green paper leaf. With leader help, participants fasten their artwork to the doorway.
Give each child approximately ten different-colored squares of tissue paper. Show the group how to make a flower:
- Stack the squares.
- Roll the squares up into a tight cylinder.
- Tape the cylinder closed with a single piece of tape around its middle.
- Fold each sheet outward and down toward the tape to bloom the flower.
Now, invite children to make flowers with tissue paper and write their names on green leaves. (In the spirit of this activity, it may be more important that children write their names themselves than that they write their names exactly correctly.)
If participants will cut out their own leaf shapes, distribute green paper, the leaf shape template, pencils for tracing, and scissors. Offer assistance as needed. Of course, the children can draw their own leaf shapes instead of using the template.
Set aside extra green paper leaves for future participants and visitors to add their names to your threshold.
Children may tie their flowers in the center with ribbons to make "stems." Tape completed flowers and leaves to mark the threshold of the meeting space. Place the decorations so they will not be damaged as people pass through the doorway.