Easy Apple Tree Preschool Craft

One of the things we look forward to every fall is visiting the apple orchard. Since it's still too early to pick apples, we settled for making our own apple trees from toilet paper rolls, tissue paper, and a bingo marker. This 3-D apple tree craft is so easy that my preschoolers could do it without help and so cute that they wanted to make an entire forest of them.

To make our apple trees, all we needed was green tissue paper, a red bingo marker, empty cardboard tubes, and a scissors.

We started by making our "apples" by stamping red dots on the green tissue paper. I'd recommend putting something underneath because the ink soaks through the tissue paper.

Next we cut some slits from one end of the paper tube and bent them back to create the branches.

We crumpled the tissue paper loosely ...

and set it on our tree. You could use a little glue to secure it if you wanted but I just tucked some of the tissue paper inside.

Our favorite apple tree books:
The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons This book about nature and the changing seasons focuses on a young boy and a very special apple tree.
 

The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall  Two sisters rejoice as the colorful blossoms on their tree develop into big, red, and ready-to-pick apples. This concept book describes how things grow.

Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins Ten red apples hanging on a tree. Yippee, fiddle-dee-fee! But they are not there for long. Horse, cow, donkey, pig, hen, and the other farm animals each eat one.

If you had fun with this craft, you might also like our paper plate apple tree.