Three triangles, a trunk and a star. The first sheet carries the six steps two to a row, each panel showing the tree as it stands at that point with one line of instruction under it. The second sheet repeats the finished tree small at the top and gives you empty boxes to copy it into. Nothing in it needs a ruler, and no step asks a child to draw a branch.
Three triangles beat one zigzag
Ask an adult to draw a Christmas tree and most of them produce one outline with a zigzag running down each side. It looks convincing while they are doing it and it falls apart the moment a child copies it, because a zigzag has no rule in it. Every branch comes out a different depth, the two sides stop matching halfway down, and what is left on the paper is a green blob with a trunk.
A triangle has a rule. Three corners, three straight lines, and a child who can manage one can manage three. The lesson stacks them so that each triangle starts a little above the base line of the one below, which is enough overlap for the three to read as a single tree. The point of the lower triangle pokes through the base line above it, and that stray point is what a branch looks like.
The widest triangle goes in first and it sits near the bottom of the box, because everything else is built upwards from it. Start it halfway up the paper and there is nowhere left to put the star.
From the widest triangle up to the star
Step one is 'Draw a wide triangle near the bottom of the page.' Steps two and three are the same instruction twice over, 'Draw a smaller triangle sitting on top of it' and then 'Draw one more triangle on top, smaller again', so two thirds of the drawing is one shape repeated at three sizes.
Step four adds 'a short, wide trunk under the tree', which is three sides of a small box hanging below the bottom triangle rather than a full rectangle, so no line is drawn across the tree itself. Step five puts the five pointed star on the very top point, sitting above the apex rather than replacing it.
Step six is the only crowded panel: seven round baubles spread across the three tiers, two on the top, two on the middle and three on the widest, then a gently curved line of ground running under the trunk from one side of the box to the other. The curve is what stops the tree looking like it is floating.
Four practice boxes, four different trees
The second sheet prints the finished tree small at the top and then gives empty squares below it, each with a faint dotted cross at its centre so the first triangle has somewhere to sit instead of drifting into a corner.
Four boxes is what this page opens on, and the tree is the subject that earns them. The boxes are empty, so the three triangles come out the same in each one and what hangs on them is up to the child: seven baubles in the first, twice as many in the second, a loop of tinsel across the third, parcels stacked along the ground in the fourth.
Set it to one box instead and the tree fills close to a whole page, which is the setting to use if the finished drawing is going on a wall. Six turns the sheet into quick repeats, and repeating a triangle is how a child stops having to think about it.
Questions
- How do you draw a Christmas tree step by step?
- Three triangles stacked from the widest at the bottom, then a short wide trunk under them, a five pointed star on the top point, and last the baubles and a curved line of ground. Six steps in all, with one instruction under each panel.
- Why triangles instead of a zigzag outline?
- Because a zigzag has no rule a child can follow, so every branch lands at a different depth and the two sides never match. A triangle is three straight lines and comes out the same every time, and three stacked ones read as a tree with branches.
- Is this Christmas tree easy enough for a five year old?
- Yes, with somebody reading the instruction under each panel out loud. The first three steps are the same shape three times at three sizes, so a child who manages step one has already managed most of the lesson.
- How many baubles are on the finished tree?
- Seven, spread two on the top tier, two on the middle and three on the widest. They go on at the last step along with the line of ground, and nothing stops a child adding more once the shape underneath is down.
- Does the star go on before or after the top triangle?
- After. The top triangle is step three and the star is step five, sitting on the point rather than replacing it. Drawing the star first leaves the triangle nowhere to finish, which is why the order on the sheet is fixed.