Getting ready for Read Across America: making my own truffula trees!

My librarian and I have been driving each other nuts about planning our Read Across America celebration. We talk about it EVERY DAY and seem to add more and more and more, until we finally say, “Who’s gonna do all this stuff?!”Anyway, I got a headstart this past weekend with some craftiness that I wanted to share. This project was so easy but it really got a lot of attention from the kids and teachers, so it’s worth it!

Don’t you LOVE it?! Its my own truffula tree! AAAAAA!

Looking for a fun family literacy night event to celebrate Read Across America with your families? Check out Read Across Your School, a Family Literacy Night resource that helps you plan your event from start to finish!

And they were so easy to make, that I decided I had to share them for Monday Made It!

This is what I needed to make two pots with two truffula trees in each.

– Two pots (I used plastic, but you could use whatever you have. I got mine from Wal-Mart for $.97)

– Four sticks. Curvy sticks from your actual trees make GREAT truffula trees.

– Spanish moss. You could also use Easter grass or paper shred.

– Ribbon, thin enough to wrap around the tree trunk.

– Four styrofoam balls.

– Styrofoam or floral foam, to put in the pots to keep the trees from falling over. I guess you could also “plant” it, but I don’t know how that would work.

– A feather boa from the craft section – you can find them at Wal-Mart.

– White paint (and paintbrush)

-Glue gun & glue sticks.

Ok, so that seems like a lot of stuff, but it was actually really easy.

First, I painted the sticks white and I let them dry.

Once they were dry, I hot-glued ribbon (I only had blue, but you could use black) to one end and then wrapped it in a spiral all the way up to the other end. Then I hot glued the end down.

Then I cut the styrofoam to fit inside the pots. I did this outside, because it left FAR less mess to clean up. I took the boa and hot glued one end onto the styrofoam ball. I continued to glue around the ball until it was fluffy and the styrofoam was hidden. Then I cut off the rest of the boa to use on the other ball. I repeated this until I had covered four styrofoam spheres. (Can you tell I’m trying to avoid the plural of “ball” here? It must come from having four brothers, or teaching fourth graders.)

I shoved the stick into the styrofoam in the pot, and then I shoved the styrofoam ball on the end of the stick. So cute.

Then I took Spanish moss and glued it around the base of the trunk, to cover the styrofoam.

The original site where I found the directions for the truffula trees is here at Hangin with Mrs. Cooper – her trees were much larger than mine, because they’re for a classroom decoration all year!

Pin It

Want this ready to go? Grab the Read Across Your School Family Literacy Night in my shop.