Add a little accessibility to your Christmas decorations this year and think about how you can incorporate some scented traditional DIY garlands into your Christmas décor.

These really sweet and very simple to create dried fruit garlands are a great for all the family fun activity…. just make sure you do it on a day when you don’t need to use your oven for a good 4 hours.

Garlands date back to Roman times when they would decorate their homes during winter season with bits of greenery and wreaths.   Over the years it has evolved to the Christmas tree, garlands are the original tree decoration.

This festive craft activity can help your child work on a number of skills:

1. Threading
2. Cutting
3. Baking

So, a great all-rounder to practise fine motor skills and kitchen independence development.

Christmas has some very unique smells that are instantly associated with the festive period… such as cinnamon, ever green trees, peppermint and gingerbread.  Its a great time of year to get the sense of smell stimulated.

For my garland I used apples, pears, oranges and chillies.

• Cut each of the fruit down to 2cm’s in thickness.
• Then pre heat your over to 200 degrees.
• Place the sliced fruit directly onto the rack
• Cook for two hours at the same temperate and then turn them over
• After 4 hours your fruit slices will be dried out and ready to be threaded onto the twine
• Use a needle and the twine and start to thread it through the centre or the fruit
• After you have threaded it through add another fruit
• What order you have them in is entirely up to you
• Keep repeating this step until the variety of fruits are lined up along the twine
• Leave a few inches either end of the fruit so that you can hang it
• Feel free to add cinnamon sticks

Once your garland is complete you will have something that not only smells amazing, but something homemade and traditional to decorate your home with!