Top Five Holiday Crafts and Activities

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Winter break is around the corner for many of us and before our kids are busy with their new toys or games, there is going to be some down time.  Unless we get a major snowstorm soon and kids can spend their days sledding, skiing, and snowman building, our kids will be in our house, asking us every day.....

"What can I do?"

I've got you covered!  I've got five no fail fun festive activities for your toddler to teen to help save your sanity and serve as some possibly gift giving options. 

1.  Gift Wrapping with Tin Foil

I got this idea from our good friend Lisa Radcliff at PunkinFutz.  She shared how she used to wrap gifts with Reynolds Wrap as a child because it was so much easier to fold foil and wrap with it because it stayed put wherever you folded it.  My son loved it and bonus, he could decorate it after!   Here's a quick video to showcase this. 

2.  Coloring on Sandpaper

Yes, that's right, sandpaper.  Sandpaper offers a unique sensory experience because it is rough to the touch.  When you color on it with crayons, it gives great tactile input, and the crayon comes out looking almost like pastels.  Our Effortless Art Crayons were the perfect choice to use with this, as they were sturdy and held up against the pressure my son used when coloring on the sandpaper.  Check out our video to see this project unfold. 

3.  Holiday Sensory Bin

Perfect for the toddler to Kindergartener.  If you are looking for something to do with all the extra tinsel or scrap wrapping paper, this is it!!

My son is five and loved this.  I was able to get in some counting and fine motor practice with him, but for the younger child, simply playing with the different textures of the paper and tinsel is great and looking for hidden objects in is extra motivating.  We used mini erasers, always a fave, but you can put anything child appropriate and safe in yours.  

4.  Holiday Geometric Line Picture

This is really easy to create and set up.  You can do this project with paper or canvas like we did, and use watercolors or markers.  You draw a simple set of shapes first, we chose triangle trees, which my son can do at his age.  And then we took a ruler and drew lines in different directions across the paper.  Then your child colors it in like a stained glass window.  I do suggest having your child keep consistent colors with the main picture, like our trees are all in shades of green, and then the rest can be a mix of colors. I'd recommend this for children who can pretty much color within lines and have some control when coloring to achieve the desired effect.  Looks really pretty when done - we are gifting ours to the grandparents! 

5.  Magic Watercolor Words

Here's a fun literacy activity you can use with any word - sight word, spelling, or winter words for fun.  You write a word with white crayon on white paper and then your child paints over it with watercolors.  It will "magically" appear!  Practice vocabulary by matching a word to a picture after it's uncovered, have them spell it, or have them use it in a sentence.  

I hope these activities help keep your kiddos busy over break.  They are really adaptable for so many ages.  Thanks for all your support and have a wonderful holiday!

Till Next Year!

Nancy