What You’ll Need

• 2 plastic bags
• Sand
• 2 tall round containers
• Paper
• Markers
• Tape
• Brown and green cardstock

What to Do

1. Fill two plastic bags with sand and place one inside each round container. Cover the top of each container with a round piece of paper.
2. Use markers to decorate two pieces of paper to look like tree bark. Wrap the paper around each container so it extends 1 inch higher than the top. Tape it in place.
3. Cut out branches from cardstock. Add paper leaves. Glue the branches inside the paper trunks.

Extend the Fun

For younger kids: Instead of tree trunks, make the bookends look like castle towers. Cut a toothlike pattern on two strips of paper to look like turrets and tape to the top of each bookend. Gather five or six of your favorite books to display, and make book covers out of pretty paper.

For older kids: Make your bookends look like goalposts or flagpoles. For goalposts, wrap containers in gray paper, put a stick in each container, and join the two sticks with a string. Or use the sticks as flagpoles. Draw and display the flags of a country you have visited or would like to visit, or the flags of the countries your ancestors came from, and tape a flag to each stick.