Fun Facts about Christmas Trees and Christmas Tree Crafts

This time of year Christmas trees are starting to pop up all over (if they haven’t already been up for a month!) so it feels like a good time to share some trivia and fun facts about Christmas trees. Share these with your kids or in the classroom.

Evergreens were used as decoration in ancient Egypt and Rome, but the tradition of using an evergreen tree in the home as a Christmas decoration (lit with candles back then) can be traced to Germany and made its way to the United States in the 1800s. According to this post all about the history of Christmas trees from History.com, Martin Luther was widely credited as being the first to put candles on trees.

The first records of Christmas trees being used in America were in the 1820s, and they were used by Germans in Pennsylvania. The use of Christmas trees on both sides of the Atlantic began to take hold when Queen Victoria was sketched with her family around a Christmas tree.

Christmas trees are grown in all 50 states, and the iconic Rockefeller Center Christmas tree has been lighting up New York City since 1931. The first lights were added to the tree two years later, and now the tree has more than 50,000 lights.

According to the National Christmas Tree Association, between 25 and 30 million real Christmas trees are sold in the United States every year. About 350,000 acres are used for growing Christmas trees in the United States, and generally three seedlings are planted for every tree that is harvested. The average growing time for a tree to become big enough to be a Christmas tree is seven years.

Oregon, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Washington are the top tree-growing states. When it comes to artificial trees, 80 percent of them are made in China.

Now that you know a little bit more about Christmas trees, how about some Christmas tree crafts? Check out these posts for some fun projects with a Christmas tree theme:

Faux stained glass Christmas tree craft
Life cycle of a Christmas tree
Make a 3D tree from a piece of paper
Christmas tree slime recipe
Roll a Christmas tree printable game
Christmas tree cutting fine motor activity
Pompom Christmas tree craft

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

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