Olive trees are a wonderful symbol of Israel and Tu B’Shevat, as well as one of the seven species we eat during the holiday of Tu B’Shevat, so we had lots of fun incorporating real olive tree nature bits and pieces to create our special Tu B’Shevat Olive Tree page for our Tu B’Shevat Seven Species Book.
What You’ll Need
- Brown paper
- Pencil or crayon
- Scissors
- Olive leaves or green paper
- Fresh olives or purple dyed water or purple paint
Putting It Together
- Trace your child’s hand on brown paper.
- Have them cut it out or help them do so.
- Glue the olive trunk to a piece of paper. If you plan to make this craft as part of a Tu B’Shevat Seven Species Book, or if you want to use the template page for olives that is in the book, download and print your free copy of the book here.
- If you have access to real olive leaves, invite your kids to glue the leaves to the olive trunk. If not, just cut some out of green paper. The kids could even tear the green paper into smaller pieces to create the leaves.
- For the olives, we used fresh olives that the kids squished and they thumb printed the juice onto their paper for their olives. You could use purple dyed water or paint to make yours.
Finished & Loving It!
My kids love going on nature walks or hunts, collecting sticks, leaves, rocks, acorns, you name it! It felt extra special when I gave them the mission to collect olive leaves and olives from their school yard. We are lucky that we attend a sweet little schoolhouse out in the country that has olive trees in its field. But of course if you don’t have access to real olives, you can always make your own with paper and the tree will be just as sweet as meaningful.
One of the reasons the tree is so sweet is because the trunk is made from your kiddo’s hand. Yep, I am a sucker for hand print, hand traced, etc. crafts that capture that beautiful moment in time that is the size and shape of your child at that moment. I also love that my kids are old enough that they could accept the challenge to trace and cut out their own hands/olive tree trunk. Since it’s not straight lines, the cutting is definitely a challenge and a good practice for my cutting learners.
The kids absolutely loved getting to squish the olives. The only olives we could find in the field were on the ground and only one looked ripe. Luckily, they all produced some juice. It was enough for the kids to be able to press a thumb or finger and then use that juice to make the fingerprint olives. Of course this felt very special and hands-on since it was from real olives they collected but your kids won’t know the difference if you just use purple paint! Same with the olive leaves: real leaves are awesome, but so are green paper leaves, cut or torn.
This project was part of our larger Tu B’Shevat Seven Species Book so the olive trees did not go on the wall display. But they absolutely loved getting to see these trees, and the other seven species, represented in the Tu B’Shevat Seven Species Book once I put it together for them. Hot tip: I’ll share all about our Tu B’Shevat Seven Species Book later this week! Make sure to check back to see how we created the other six seven species!
Chag Tu B’Shevat Sameach!
We have a whole page dedicated to Tu B’Shevat, our Tu B’Shevat Hub. Check it out! It includes some of the Tu B’Shevat activities we plan to do this year, as well as the activities we’ve done in previous years.
And don’t forget our Tu B’Shevat Montessori-Style 3 Part Cards, a wonderful way to introduce Tu B’Shevat! And, now we also have all 13 Jewish holidays bundled together in A Year of Jewish Holidays 3 Part Cards.
If you want to have a ton of Tu B’Shevat early learner activities ready at your fingertips, try our Tu B’Shevat Activities Packet for Early Learners! I am so excited about all the Tu B’Shevat-themed literacy, fine motor skills, math, and play fun!
The following sites are amazing resources for learning more about this holiday:
Chag Sameach!
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[…] To make the olives page, trace your child’s hand on brown paper. Have them cut it out or help them do so. Glue the olive trunk to the olive page. If you have access to real olive leaves, invite them to glue the leaves to the olive trunk. If not, just cut some out of green paper. For the olives, we used fresh olives that the kids squished and they thumb printed the juice onto their paper for their olives. You could use purple dyed water or paint to make yours. See the full tutorial here. […]