40 Christmas Activities for Kids

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Looking for Christmas activities for kids or ways to keep your kids entertained this Holiday season? Easy, inexpensive, creative and of course fun ideas that your kids will love, to help get you through the Christmas break? Want the best way to engage children at home or in the classroom this holiday? Then you have come to the right place! Here you’ll find tons of inspiration and ideas to make Christmas magical.

Christmas Activities for Kids

Christmas is one of the best times of the year! As parents, we are always looking for fun ways to make it a special time for our children. There are several ways to make December fun and festive while being educational. Here are some great ways to make core memories this Christmas! They include Christmas crafts, sensory play, Santas, Christmas games, gifts for family and friends, slime, Christmas cards,  and some ideas that are just plain adorable and fun! These ideas are great for toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarten aged child all the way up to school age kids as well.

They are all easy to set up because your time is valuable and I get it, you are exhausted!

Looking for Christmas activities for kids or ways to keep your kids entertained this Holiday season? Easy, inexpensive, creative and of course fun ideas that your kids will love, to help get you through the Christmas break? Want the best way to engage children at home or in the classroom this holiday? Then you have come to the right place! Here you’ll find tons of inspiration and ideas to make Christmas magical.

Looking for more Fun Christmas Crafts & Activities? Check out these fun ideas:

Ways to keep the Mess Down

When it comes to doing activities this Holiday with my kids I like to keep them easy and the clean up even easier. My newest tool of choice are these white serving trays that make doing painting activities and anything mess super easy to clean up.

It’s honestly a game changer for me and my three crafty kids!

Ready for the Holiday Cheer to begin?

1. Pipe Cleaner Christmas Tree

Materials

  • Pipe cleaners
  • Carbboard
  • Pony beads or coloured pasta or wooden beads
  • Sparkly foam sheets or yellow construction paper 
  • Hot glue gun

How to Set Up

  1. Grab a peice of cardboard and 4-5 pipe cleaners. If your child is using pasta add a few more, if they are using beads add a few less. 
  2. Grab your hot glue gun and squeeze out a large dollop at the top of your piece of cardboard. Stick one end of each pipe cleaner into the glue and press down. Continue adding them close together in one point so that they form a triangle going down. 
  3. Cut out a star from yellow construction paper or foam sheet or if you have it sparkly gold foam sheets. I have foam sheets that are self adhesive which is helpful otherwise you can stick the star over the pipe cleaners ends in the glue. Make the star large enough that it covers all the pipe cleaners at the top of the tree.

How to Play

Invite your little one to thread pony beads, wooden beads or coloured penne pasta along the pipe cleaners to decorate the Christmas tree.

Once each strand is done you can poke the end of the pipe cleaners into the cardboard to keep the beads from coming off. You can also invite your child to decorate the background of the tree with snowflakes or paint. You can use a Q-Tip and white paint to make small snowflakes.

2. Potato Christmas Lights

Materials

How to Set Up

  1. Grab your white Kraft paper and cover your table or floor with it. Take your black paint stick (you could also use a black sharpie for this part) and draw a string of Christmas lights. Include small sockets where your little one is going to stamp the mini potatoes or Pom poms or finger prints or wine corks.
  2. Pour a small amount of each colour you want to use on to a paper plate. Cut mini potatoes in half and arrange them beside each colour. Although I would have liked my toddlers to use a new potato for each colour, this of course was not the case. They often ended up mixing the colours which was fine and gave us an opportunity to talk about what new colours they were making.
  3. Show your little one where to stamp the potatoes to create the light bulbs, at the end of the light bulb socket your created. Then let them loose. 

How to Play

Before they used their work as a sensory painting activity, I was able to save enough of their Christmas light painting to use it as wrapping paper for the handmade gifts they make for their grandparents! 

3. Snowman Sticky Wall

READ MORE… 60+ AWESOME CONTACT PAPER ACTIVITIES

Materials

How to Set Up

  1. Grab your orange and black foam sheets paper and scissors. Cut out a carrot nose, a top hat and a smile mouth for your snowman.
  2. Unroll your contact paper and draw the outline of a snowman using a black sharpie on the back of the sticky wall (not the side with the paper backing). Tape your contact paper snowman up on a wall or window with the sticky side facing out.
  3. Set out your cotton balls, buttons, snowflakes and google eyes, nose, hat and mouth in a way your little one can easily access it. I used a plastic appetizer tray.

How to Play

Invite your little one build a snowman. Add the eyes, hat, nose and mouth first before adding the cotton ball snow. Once the cotton balls go on the sticky wall it will be harder to stick anything else up. Next add the buttons.

Finally its time to add the cotton ball snow! Let your little one use the cotton balls to dap snow on the snowman. 

4. DIY Christmas Tree Puzzle

READ MORE… 25 MAGNETIC TILES ACTIVITIES

Materials

How to Set Up

  1. Take your painters’ tape or masking tape or even washi tape and create the triangle branches of your Christmas tree. You can also create a start at the top of the tree, square presents under the tree and triangle decorations hanging from the tree.

How to Play

Invite your child to use the Connectix Magnetic Tiles to fill in the spaces inside the painters tape. This is a great activity for building and developing problem solving and fine motor skills.

5. Pom Pom Christmas Tree

Materials

  • Green Painter’s tape
  • Pom Poms
  • Yellow construction paper or foam sheets

How to Set Up

  1. Create a tape triangle. Place a piece of tape on the wall. Use this as your anchor to hold up the tape lines of the tree.
  2. Create 4-5 tape lines  with the sticky side of the tape facing out. Anchor the tape line at the top the piece of tape you put there initially. 
  3. Place another piece of tape on the bottom of each line to secure it.
  4. Cut out a star from construction paper or foam sheet and stick it on top of the tree using painter’s tape.

How to Play

Invite your child to stick colourful Pom Poms on the tape to decorate the tree. For older children have them create patterns with the Pom Poms.

6. Paper Towel Surprise Christmas Tree

Materials

How to Set Up

  1. Lay another sheet of paper towel on top of your tree drawing and trace the outline of the tree on the top sheet using a black permanent marker such as a sharpie.
  2. This is the tricky part. As you draw the outline you will need to see the tree that you drew on the bottom. An easy way to do this, is put your two sheets of paper towel up to a window so that you can see the coloured tree on the bottom. Draw the outline of it on the top sheet.
  3. Place your paper towel drawing with the permanent marker side up on a baking sheet or larger dinner plate.

How to Play

If this is the first time your little one is using an eye dropper, I suggest practicing using it before starting the activity.

Once they get the hang of it, invite them to drop water onto their Christmas Tree and to watch the colour come through and the decorations light up!

7. Frozen Pom Pom Sensory Bin

Materials

How to Set Up

Put your pom poms into a small sensory bin or plastic container that will fit into your freezer, add water and let them soak. I let mine soak for a few hours simple because I forgot about them but about 10-15 minutes should be enough. I did not completely cover the pom poms in water. The ones on the bottom were submerged but the ones on the top were not. I just made sure that they were all good and soaking wet before I put them into the freezer over night.

How to Play

I grabbed some squeeze bottles filled them with warm water, and handed her a paint brush and other tools.

She squeezed the warm water onto the pom poms and them used the brush and tools to work them out.

Put a towel down and save yourself having to clean up water from the floor or table.

8. How to Make Fake Snow

Materials

  • 1 Cup Shaving Cream
  • 1 Cup Baking Soda

How to Set Up

1. Combine the two ingredients in a bowl until they are the consistency of wet snow.

How to Play

Place the fake some in a sensory bin and add plastic trucks, bowls, and shovel.

9. Build A Paper Towel Frosty

Materials

How to Set Up

  1. Setting up this activity is super easy. If you are doing IT with babies or young toddlers, I would avoid using buttons or googley eyes. You can create the faces and buttons on the snowman using a sharpie.
  2. If you are doing this with older toddlers or preschoolers have them create the snowman using buttons, construction paper and googley eyes. I let my toddlers attach the buttons to the make the face and the body using masking tape on the back of the buttons. I also grabbed a few hats and scarves to complete our snowmen! For the nose, I cut out a triangle from orange construction paper. I also gave them large googley eyes for the snowman face. Again they attached all of these items using masking tape.

How to Play

Once they have created the faces and body of the snowmen, I asked them to build a snowman. At first my toddlers put the heads on the bottom and the body on top. I asked them to think about where their heads were on their body.

10. Jumping Reindeer Craft

Materials

  • Two paper cups
  • Brown, black and tan construction paper
  • Glue
  • Googley eyes (or black and white construction paper)
  • Red pom pom (or red construction paper)
  • Elastic band
  • Scissors

How to Set Up

  1. Cut a large circle and a smaller circle out of brown construction paper. Glue the smaller one on top of the larger one. This will be the body of the reindeer. Cut out two legs from the brown construction paper and hooves from black construction paper. Glue those together and then on to the body of the reindeer.
  2. Cut a small oval for the mouth and two small inner ears from the tan construction paper. Glue the nose to the face of the reindeer and then a red Pom Pom on top. Cut out slightly larger ears and antlers from the brown construction paper. Glue the inner ears to the larger brown ears. 
  3. Then glue them to the sides of the reindeer head. Attach the antlers just inside the ears. Finally, glue on the googley eyes.

Time to Create the Jumping Apparatus

  1. Time to take your paper cups. With one cup make two cuts about an inch long on either side of the cup to create two tabs. Take an elastic band and slide one end into the two slits on one side. Twist it and slide the other end into the slits on the other side. Slide the elastic band all the way down as far as it can go.
  2. Next, glue the reindeer to the side of the cup with the elastic band. Make sure to secure all the parts of the reindeer. Its going to be jumping pretty high so you don’t want it to lose an eye on the way down.

Make your Reindeer Jump

  1. Place the cup with the reindeer and the elastic band inside on top of the other cup. Press is down and move your hands out of the way quickly to let your reindeer fly! Experiment with different ways to get the reindeer to jump and fly the highest!

11. Black Glue Christmas Lights

Materials

  • Black paint
  • White school glue
  • washable finger paints in various colours

How to Set Up

  1. Pour of about 1/4 of the white school glue from the bottle and replace it with black paint. 
  2. Shake the bottle well and mix with a bamboo stick. Replace the nozzle.
  3. Take a piece of white cardstock trace a line of christmas lights with a pencil
  4. Invite your child to trace the line with the black glue . Set it aside to dry. It may take a few hours so either start this activity in the morning and finish in the afternoon or start in the evening and finish in the morning.
  5. Pour out some washable finger paints in various colours.
  6. Invite your child to stick their finger in one color and create Christmas lights at various spot on the string of lights. 
  7. Continue using different colours.

12. Hot Chocolate Name Craft

Materials

  • Blue, white and another colour of your choice construction paper
  • Brown tissue paper
  • Glue
  • Cotton ball
  • Scissors
  • Snowflakes
  • White pencil crayon

How to Set Up

  1. Cut out the shape of a mug from a sheet of construction paper. You can let your child choose their favourite colour for their mug. Glue it to another sheet of blue construction paper.
  2. Cut brown tissue paper into small squares and invite your little one to fill their empty mug with hot chocolate by gluing the tissue paper to the top part of the mug. You can draw an oval at the top to help guide them.
  3. For the marshmallows, cut out the number circles that corresponds to your child’s name and write the letters of their name on each circle. Invite them to glue them down as marshmallows on top of the brown tissue paper.
  4. Take a cotton ball and if you can unwrap it to create the steam coming off the cup of hot chocolate. Glue it down above the cup. If you can unwrap the cotton ball simply glue several cotton ball on the top as steam.
  5. Invite your little one to glue snowflakes on and around the mug as decoration. Let them also use a white pencil crayon to decorate their mug!

13. Christmas Tree Writing Tray

Materials

How to Set Up

  1. For the writing utensil use a branch from your Christmas Tree. Use one that is light enough for myoury little one to handle. Remove a few of the smaller branches from one end so that they have enough space to hold it.
  2. Pour out salt on to a baking sheet so that it is covered entirely.

How to Play

I then grabbed our magnetic fridge letters and created a few CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words for my daughter to write. Once they are done all they need to do is give the baking sheet a little shake to ‘erase’ the word or letter. 

14. Christmas Playdough

How to Set Up

Grab your green, red, and white play dough. Here’s our favourite homemade no-cook play dough recipe.

Next, grab all your favourite holiday accessories such as jingle bells, plastic Christmas lights, party necklaces and holiday themed cookie cutters

The good thing about this play dough invitation is that you can really use anything you want! So feel free to modify this list and to use what you have at home. Here are a few ideas of other things to include:

  • Pom poms
  • small presents
  • mini santa figurines  

15. Christmas Slime

Materials

  • 1 bottle of clear Elmer’s glitter glue or 6oz (bleu, red or green)
  • 1/2 teaspoon of Baking Soda
  • 1½ tablespoon of Contact lens solution. Make sure your contact lens solution contain boric acid and sodium borate. 
  • 1 tablespoon of water
  • Bowl
  • Spoon
  • Measuring cups and spoons
  • Glitter Snowflakes

How to Set Up

  1. Empty the  entire 6 oz or 3/4 cup Elmer’s Glitter glue into the bowl.
  2. Add  1/2 teaspoon of baking soda and mix in thoroughly. 
  3. Add 1/4 cup of water to make super stretchy.
  4. Add 1 tablespoon of contact lens solution and mix throughly.
  5. Add 1/2 tablespoon of contact lens solution and mix throughly. 
  6. The slime will be very very sticky still but it should start to peel of the sides of the bowl. Mix with a spoon until this starts to happen and then start mixing and kneading it with your hands.

16. Cut and Paste Santa Advent Calendar

Education math game for children. Christmas Advent Calendar with Santa Claus. Kids learning material. Preschool worksheet activity. Children funny riddle entertainment for the development of logical thinking

Materials

  • Cut and pasta SantaAdvent Calendar printable

How to Set Up

  1. Print out the free SantaAdvent Calendar printable.

How to Play

Cut out the numbers corresponding to each day in December leading up to Christmas and glue them to the correct spot on Santa’s beard.

17. Trim the Christmas Tree Cutting Activity

Materials

  • Green construction paper
  • glue
  • Scissors
  • Yellow construction paper or sparkly gold foam sheet
  • Brown construction paper

How to Set Up

  1. Cut out three triangles from green construction paper.
  2. Glue them one on top of each other to make a Christmas Tree. Only place a small dab of glue on the top part of the triangle leaving the bottoms free.
  3. Take a pair of scissors and cut branches along the bottom of the triangles. Use the scissors to curl the ends as well.
  4. Cut out a rectangle for the trunk of the tree and glue it down under the tree.

How to Play

Invite your child to cut the branches of the tree using scissors.

18. Cotton Ball Christmas Tree

Materials

  • Cardboard
  • Scissors 
  • Pencil
  • Cotton Balls
  • Glue
  • Eye Droppers
  • Food Colouring
  • Bowls or glasses
  • Water

How to Set Up

  1. Grab a piece of cardboard, your glue and lots of cotton balls. Draw a rough outline of a Christmas Tree on your cardboard using a pencil.
  2. Next, glue down you cotton balls over your drawing in the shape of a Christmas Tree similar to the photo referent above.
  3. If this is the first time your little one is using an eye dropped I suggest practicing using it with just water before adding the colour.
  4. Once they get the hang of it add the colour to the water. Grab six bowls or glasses and fill them half way with water. Add a few drops of different food colouring into each container. We did all the colours of the rainbow from red to purple.

How to Play

Invite your child to using the droppers to colour the cotton balls and create a rainbow Christmas Tree!

There will be some mess. This is indeed a messy activity. The good news is that the cardboard will catch and absorb most of the mess. Make sure to use a piece of cardboard large enough to hold the christmas with some room on the ends to catch any run off.

19. Post-It Christmas Tree 

Materials

  • Green and yellow Post It notes
  • Washable Markers
  • Washable Dot Stickers
  • Stickers

How to Set Up

  1. Create a Christmas Tree using post it notes. I created mine on a mirror but you can easily create this on a wall. 

How to Play

Next its time to let your little one to decorate your tree. To ensure that your walls stay clean make sure to use washable markers. You can also protect your walls by taping up newsprint or butcher paper on the wall and creating the Christmas Tree on top of it.

To decorate the tree use regular or holiday themed stickers, washable markers and dot markers. Let your little ones draw decoration, presents and ornaments.

Have bigger kids write out fun Christmas messages or lines from their favourite Christmas carol. Leave it up as part of your decorations or take it down in a few days once your little one has decorated it all!

20. Santa Beard Cutting Craft

Materials

How to Set Up

  1. Setting up this fun holiday cutting activity is super easy to do. To make the Santa faces I used our array of skin tone construction paper. Cut out dinner plate size circles for the Santa faces. Use your sharpie to draw a face for Santa. I created five Santas.
  2. Then cut out large triangles his hat. Glue the red triangle hat to the head. Glue a cotton ball to the top of the hat. Cut out a trim for the hat from your white printer paper. Glue this to the bottom of Santa’s hat. 
  3. Take another sheet of white printer paper and glue it to the bottom of the Santa face. This will become his beard. Take your black sharpie and draw the lines you want your little one to follow as they are cutting. I made some with straight lines, some zig zag, some with curved lines and some with box lines. These more complex cutting lines would be for my older daughter while my toddlers would stick with the straight lines.
  4. Next, tape your Santas to the wall to create a fun and inviting activity for your little one.

How to Play

If your toddler or preschooler is still learning how to cut, check out this post for more information on teaching them how to use scissors.

21. Paper Circle Christmas Tree Card

Christmas tree greeting card. Handmade. Project of children’s creativity, handicrafts, crafts for kids.

Materials

  • Colorful paper
  • scissors or circle lever punch
  • White card stock 
  • White construction paper
  • Glue
  • Pencil
  • Red construction paper 
  • Crinkle scissors

How to Set Up

  1. Fold the colorful paper in half to create a card.
  2. Measure and cut out a piece of white card stock that is slightly smaller than the card and stick it on the front of the card.
  3. On the white front of the card draw the outline of a triangle lightly with a pencil.
  4. Use the circle lever punch to create circles in different sizes. Or cut circles out from paper.
  5. Fold them in half.
  6. Glue one side of the circles along the edge of the triangle and in the inside.
  7. Cut a rectangle from red construction paper. Cut out triangles on the end to create the banner. Glue it to the bottom of the card.
  8. Write out “Merry Christmas” on white construction paper. Cut around it using the crinkle scissors and glue on top of the banner.

22. Puffy Paint Christmas Tree Craft

Materials

  • Shaving cream
  • School glue
  • Green food colouring
  • Bowl
  • Paint brush
  • White card stock
  • Marker
  • Pom Poms 
  • Glitter gold foam sheet
  • Scissors

How to Set Up

  1. On a sheet of white card stock or white paper, draw the basic shape of a Christmas similar to what I have drawn below.
  2. In a bowl combine combine 1/4 white school glue, 1/4 shaving cream and a few drops of green food colouring. Use a craft stick or paint brush to mix it. Puffy paint resembles cloud but it doesn’t last for ever. Use the paint within 30 minutes. Once dry the paint will remain full for a few hours and then loose it thickness over time. It should feel dry to the touch.
  3. Invite your little one to take their paint brush and cover the entire tree triangle with the green puffy paint. 
  4. Once it is covered, invite them to decorate their Christmas Tree using Pom Poms. Have them place the Pom Poms into the puffy paint while its wet to decorate the tree.
  5. Mix a second batch of puffy paint, this time brown. I let my kids help me out with this one. They thought this batch looked a lot like… well you can probably guess. It made for plenty of laughs.
  6. Use the brown puffy paint to paint the trunk of the tree.
  7. Cut out a star from gold foam paper and glue it on top of the tree! Set it aside to dry!

23. Paper Cup Christmas Tree Craft

Materials

  • Paper cup
  • Green paint
  • Brush
  • Gems or pom poms or buttons or dot stickers or construction paper
  • Gold foam sheets
  • Glue
  • Scissors

How to Set Up

  1. Grab a paper cup and your green paint. Paint the entire cup green set it aside to dry. You may need to paint it twice for coverage. 
  2. Once it is dry, grab some gems (or Pom Poms or buttons or dot stickers or small circles cut from construction paper) and glue them all around the paper cup. 
  3. Grab your sparkly gold foam paper and trace the shape of a star. Use a pair of scissors to cut it out. Glue it to the top of the paper cup.

24. Toilet Paper Roll Christmas Trees

Materials

  • Toilet paper rolls
  • Cereal box cardboard
  • Scissors
  • Paint
  • Small paint brush
  • Q-tip

How to Set Up

  1. Cut out triangles from cereal box. 
  2. Cut out rings from the toilet paper roll. Cut two slits in the side of the toilet paper ring.
  3. Flatten a toilet paper roll slightly and use a pencil to draw the outline of a Christmas Tree. 
  4. Use a paint brush to paint the tree green and decorate them using the q-tips or smaller paint brush.

25. Hot Chocolate Sensory Bin

Materials

  • Water
  • Brown food colouring
  • Sensory Bin
  • Play or real mug or tea cups
  • Mini marshmallows or white pom poms
  • Play or real tea spoons

How to Set Up

  1. Grab your sensory bin and fill it cold water. Add a single drop of brown food coloring and mix. Test to make sure that it won’t stain your child’s hands by dipping your finger in first. If your fingers gets stained add more water or remove some of the coloured water you have and add more water without adding any more brown food colouring. The small amount of food colouring and lots of water mix did not stain my children’s clothing.
  2. Add some pretend play tea cups and mugs or some travel mugs for scooping and pouring. Also add a few pretend play spoons or real tea spoons for scooping.
  3. Next, add mini marshmallows. Don’t add the marshmallows until right before your child is ready to play. They will eventually dissolve in the water even if the water is cold.
  4. Invite your child over to their own hot chocolate stand! Let your little ones play and pretend to make steaming cups of pretend hot chocolate for you, their siblings or stuffy animals.

26. Christmas Ornament Ramp

Materials

  • Cardboard
  • Shatterproof Christmas baubles or balls

How to Set Up

  1. Make a ramp with a cardboard box.

How to Play

Invite your child to drop shatterproof baubles down the ramp. There are so many variations of this fantastic ramp activity that you can do. Plus don’t waste your wonderful ramp on just baubles! Once they get bored of the baubles instruct them to grab their favorite mini cars and race them down the ramp!

27. DIY Tie-Dye Christmas Cards

Materials

  • Construction paper
  • Glue
  • Paper towel
  • Elastic bands
  • food colour or liquid water colours
  • Scissors

How to Set Up

Make the tie dye

Grab a muffin and fill each section with a small amount of water. The add a few drops of food colouring into each section. The more food colouring more vibrant the colour will be.

Wrap the paper towel

Grab a sheet of paper towel and elastic bands. Fold the paper towel and the wrap the elastic bands around it. Fold the paper towel in different ways (ie. lengthwise or diagonal) and wrap the elastic bands in different ways as well each time to create a new and unique tie dye pattern.

Add colour

Slowly dip one small section of the wrapped paper towel into one the coloured water. Adjust the position and dip an uncolored section into the coloured water. Continue until the entire wrapped paper towel is coloured.

  1. Unwrap the paper towel. Slowly and carefully unwrap (remove the elastic bands) the coloured paper towel to reveal your tie dye print. Be careful not to tear the paper towel as you unwrap as it will be damp.
  2. Set out to dry. Lay your tie dye paper towel on a flat surface to dry.
  3. Make the Snowman Card. While the tie dye paper towel dries, make the snowman or Christmas tree card (see below). Fold a piece of black, red or green construction paper in half to make a card. Out of white construction paper, cut one large circle for the body and one larger circle for the body. Glue it to the front of your card. Cut out an orange triangle for the nose and glue it to the top of the snowman.
  4. Make the Christmas Trees Cards. Fold a piece of black, red or green construction paper in half to make a card. Out of green construction paper, cut three triangles for Christmas trees and glue them to the front of the construction paper. From yellow construction paper, cut three stars for the tops of the Christmas tree. Attached them to the top of the Christmas trees using glue.
  5. Cut out Scarf and Christmas Tree Decorations. Once your tie dye paper towels are dry, cut out the shape of a scarf for the snowman and decorations for Christmas trees.
  6. Attach Scarf or Tree Decorations. Use tape (double sided if available) to stick the tie dye tie on the construction paper shirt. Or you can use a glue stick to attach the tie dye scarf to the snowman or decorations to the Christmas tree.

How to Play

Have your child write a Happy Holiday message inside the card if they are able or you can write something for them!

28. Santa Sensory Bin

Materials

How to Make Red Colored Rice

What You’ll Need

  • 1 Cup of White Rice
  • 1/2 tsp White Vinegar
  • Several Drops of Red Gel Food Coloring
  • Large Ziploc Bags
  • Parchment Paper
  • Baking Sheets or Tupperware containers

How to Make

  1. Combine the rice, white vinegar and red food coloring in a Ziploc bag. 
  2. Seal it carefully and mix the contents throughly. 
  3. Repeat for each color.
  4. Lay a sheet of parchment paper on a baking sheet or line a Tupperware container. 
  5. Spread the colored rice out on the parchment paper and allow it to dry overnight. 

Troubleshooting

If you don’t have gel food coloring, regular food coloring will work fine. If you want your rice to be more vibrant add more than just a few drops of food coloring and a small amount of white vinegar. Although the instructions calls for 1 cup of rice I usually make between 6-7 cups of rice for a sensory bin. 

How to Set Up

  1. Make the Santa belly bottles. Cut out a black belt long enough to fit around your containers. 
  2. Cut out a  yellow square. Cut the middle out the yellow square and glue it to the black belt
  3. Glue the belt to  around your bottle or containers. Glue cotton balls on top the belt.
  4. Pour the rice in the sensory bin. Add the presents, trees, scoopers and Santa Belly bottles or containers. 

How to Play

Invite your little one to scoop and pour the rice into the bottles to fill them and make the Santa Bellies red.

29. Santa Sticky Wall

Materials

How to Set Up

Grab your red foam sheets and scissors. Cut a large triangle hat for Santa. Glue a cotton ball to the top. Also cut a large red circle for Santa’s nose.

Cut a large square from your roll of contact paper. On the back draw a large round circle for Santa’s face. Tape your contact paper up on the wall with the sticky side facing out. 

Grab your cotton balls, large googley eyes, Santa hat and nose. 

How to Play

Next, I invited my twin toddlers to build a Santa Claus! First, they put up his hat, nose and eyes, then they started to create his beard using cotton balls.

To create the beard, your toddler can either dab the cotton balls on the contact paper or they can stick the entire cotton ball on the wall.

30. Christmas Sweater Sticky Wall

Materials

How to Set Up

  1. On the back of the contact paper, draw the outline of a sweater.
  2. Grab your gems, buttons, pom poms, foam winter and Christmas shapes.
  3. Peel the back off the contact paper and use the painter’s tape or masking tape to attach it to the wall or window with the sticky side facing out.

How to Play

Decorate the entire Christmas sweater to make an unique sweater design!

Supplies

How to Set Up

  1. Have your little one lie down on the floor beside the kraft paper roll. Unroll the paper on the floor the same length as your child.
  2. Cut the paper slightly longer than the length of your child. Tape it down to the floor with the masking tape.
  3. Using a pencil trace around your child’s body on the kraft paper to create an outline of your child and your gingerbread manoutline.Retrace the outline using the black sharpie. I did not trace my daughter’s outline with the black sharpie the first time as I I did not want to get the permanent marker on her clothing.

How to Play

I had my little one draw a face on her gingerbread girl outline using Kwik Stix Solid Tempera Paint. These are great for activities like this as they are paint but they dry in seconds. Making them ideal painting tools for toddlers! Don’t have paint sticks? No worries you can use whatever markers or crayons that you have!

Then decorate the rest of your gingerbread girl or boy. Use foam stickers and Kwik Stix Solid Tempera Paint to decorate the arms and legs and to make buttons.

32. Fork Painted Melted Snowman

Materials

How to Set Up

  1. Pour the white paint on your paint pallet (or use a paper plate or a scrap piece of paper to hold the paint).
  2. Dip the fork into the paint. Stamp the fork in the center of the paper with the ends of the fork facing out.
  3. Continue stamping all around to make a circle shape.
  4. Then stamp the fork four more times in between in each of your cross stamps. Set it aside to dry.
  5. Cut out a triangle for the nose and stick arms. Stick them in your snowman using glue.

33. Pin the Star on the Christmas Tree

Materials

How to Set Up

  1. On a large piece of green construction paper draw the outline of a Christmas tree. I also added the outline of a some garlandon the tree.
  2. From the brown construction paper cut out a rectangle. This will be the stump of the Christmas tree.
  3. Next, you could either use this tree to play the Pin the Star on the Christmas Tree or you can have your little one decorate the Christmas tree using dot stickers. 

How to Play

Next, hang up the Christmas tree on the wall or window and take your foam or paper stars and place a piece of masking tape on the back of each one. Blindfold your child.

I used a silk scarf. Hand them a star, spin them around a few times and then face them in the direction of the tree and see if they can pin the star on top of the Christmas tree!

After we played this game a few times I started to give her directions on where to place the star while she was blindfolded.

34. Christmas I-Spy Sensory Bin

Materials

How to Set Up

  1. Grab your large sensory bin and fill it with green split peas. I unfortunately did not have any white filler (like white beans or enough cotton balls) so we had to settle for a green filler.
  2. All my activities use things that I already have in my home. If I remember to pick up a supply, great. But most of the time I must make do with what I have in the house and believe me my daughter did not mind one bit that the bin was green and not white. The peas were fun to play with and can be used again again if you store them in a large zip-lock bag.
  3. Grab all your Christmas items. Don’t worry if you have more than one of each item. It is actually good for them to be able to describe the same item using different words. I added Christmas erasers, baubles, different Christmas ornaments, and jingle bells.

How to Play

This is a great activity that your little one will definitely love, largely because you will be playing with them! For younger toddlers you can model for them how to play.

To describe an gingerbread man eraser she talked about it’s colour, shape and what we generally do with them (eat them of course)!

35. Christmas Coloring Pages: Free Printable

Materials

  • Christmas Colouring Pages

How to Set Up

  1. Print out the christmas coloring pages and decorate with markers, pencil crayons, or crayons.

36. Christmas Worksheets: Free Printable

Materials

  • Christmas Colouring Pages

How to Set Up

  • Print out the Christmas worksheet and follow the instructions on the sheets. 

37. Feed Santa Cookie Game

Materials

How to Set Up

  1. First thing you need a cardboard box. I was doing this activity with all three of my kids so I used a very large box but this can be done with any size box. Draw the outline of a Santa face with your black sharpie. Use my picture as a reference. 
  2. Grab your paint sticks and colour in your Santa’s beard, hair and hat. Take a pair of scissors and cut out the mouth of the Santa big enough to fit cookies you make. Add large googley eyes for added character to your Santa!
  3. I used brown construction paper to make my M&M Christmas cookies. You can also use spare cardboard. Cut them into small circles and use you paint sticks to create colourful M&M cookies.
  4. Then I grabbed my number flashcards. They don’t get used try often since I prefer to use hand-ons on activities to teach and practice counting withy kids but they are useful for activities like this. If you don’t have number flashcards you can create your own or use a large dice.

How to Play

Flip over a flashcard or role the dice and then ask your toddler or preschooler what number it is. If you are using flashcards and it has objects on it depicting the number represented have them count those objects. If you are using a dice, count the number of dots.

Tell them that Santa is very hungry (I actually became the voice of Santa and asked my toddlers to feed me [Santa] that number of cookies on the flashcard). They absolutely loved that I pretended to be Santa and eagerly counted out the right number of cookies to feed Santa.

38. Candy Cane Fishing Game

Materials

  • Candy canes
  • bowls

How to Set Up

  1. Place the candy canes into a bowl.
  2. Take one candy cane and place it the end into your mouth (don’t eat it yet!).

How to Play

Put your hands behind your back and try to use the candy cane to fish out other candy canes from the bowl.

Have two bowls of candy canes and have your kids race each other to see who can fish out the most in certain amount of time (this is better for older kids).

For younger kids: have them take the candy cane in their hands and use it as a fishing rod to fish out candy canes from the bowl.

39. Dot Sticker Tree Christmas Card

Materials

  • White card stock
  • Green card stock
  • Dot stickers
  • Sparkly Gold foam sheets or yellow construction paper
  • glue

How to Set Up

  1. Fold the white card stock in half.
  2. Cut out three triangles from the green card stock. Glue them down on the front of the card.
  3. Use the dot stickers to decorate the tree.
  4. Cut out a star from the sparkly gold foam sheet. Stick it on top of the tree.

How to Play

Write a message in the card and give it to family or friend for Christmas.

40. Post-it Note Present Letter Match

Materials

  • Post It Notes
  • Butcher Paper
  • Sharpie
  • Painter’s Tape

How to Set Up

  1. We have been using post it notes a lot recently in our house. My kids love playing and drawing on them. If I leave a pad out by accident it will get used up very quickly and I will find them stuck all around my house. 
  2. Setting up this post it matching is very easy. Grab your butcher paper and cut off a large sheet. Grab a pad of post it notes and trace squares all over your sheet using a sharpie. Next, draw bows ontop of each present and viola you have presents!

How to Play

For this matching activity I wanted to practice letters with my toddlers, specifically, matching upper and lower case letters. The wonderful things about this great activity is that it can be modified to meet any learning goal you have such as numbers, shapes and colours.

READ MORE… 35+ Post It Note Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers 

Books, TV Show & Play Kits!

Book: Exciting Sensory Bins for Curious Kids

Did you know I wrote a book of sensory bins? Click here for more information Exciting Sensory Bin for Curious Kids. Or grab your copy at Amazon

Engage your child in hours of play with my colorful collection of over 60 sensory bin activities, recipes and play projects that aid with memory formation, language development, problem-solving skills and more. Perfect for toddlers from eighteen months to three years old and beyond, each bin makes use of materials you already have at home and helps reignite your kids’ interest in toys long forgotten.

Boring afternoons are made exciting with awesome animal-based bins, like Salty Shark Bay or Yarn Farm. Pretend play bins like Birthday Cake Sensory Play or Bubble Tea Party encourage creativity and imagination. And your kids will have so much fun they won’t even know they’re getting smarter with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) activities like Sink or Float Soup, Magnetic Letter Hunt or Ice Cream Scoop and Count.

With setup instructions, details on how to guide your child through each activity, suggestions for what to talk about with your child as they play and other useful tips, Mandisa gives you all the information you need for creative sensory activities your kids are bound to love.

Designed for toddlers 18 months and up.

Book: Super STEAM Activity Book for Kids

Learning all about science, technology, engineering, art, and math sets kids up for scholastic success―and it can be so much fun! Watch kids enjoy building STEAM skills as they color friendly fish, help water find its way to tree roots, solve math problems with mazes, and more. 

Find out more and grab your copy here.

Designed for preschoolers 3 years old and up.

How to Make Colored Spaghetti for Sensory Play

Book: Big Book of Riddles for Kids

Riddle me this: What’s an exciting way to practice critical thinking while having a blast? The Big Riddle Book for Kids, of course! From hilarious puns to tough brain teasers, kids can build problem-solving skills with hundreds of riddles that show them how to think outside the box.

  • 350 riddles for kids—Have hours of fun with riddles, puns and jokes, and math and logic puzzles that’ll get their wheels turning!
  • Level up their skills—Riddles get trickier as kids progress through the book, challenging them as they get better at solving puzzles!
  • Double-check their work—Kids can check their answers in the back of the book with a handy answer key.

Help children expand their minds while having fun with this puzzle book for kids!

Designed for kids ages 6 years old and up.

TV Show: Curious Crafting

I’m so excited to finally share my new crafting TV show Curious Crafting which launched July 1 at on TVOkids and TVOkids YouTube!

Set in the ultimate crafting space, Curious Crafting is a short form pre-school age series about the joy of making crafts. I lead a rotating cast of adorable little preschoolers (including my own) making magic out of common household objects.

In each episode we transform recycled items into magical crafts like a milk carton school bus, paper bag puppet or cotton pad turtle. The crafters learn and laugh their way through each activity while demonstrating what their young imaginations can create. 

Curious Crafting shares the adventure and joy of making art with takeaway lessons for creating crafts at home.

This show designed for toddlers and preschoolers 2.5 years old and up. 

The Best Sensory Play Kits for Kids

Play is at the core of learning during the early years and it can take many forms. One of the most important of these is sensory play because it engages all of a child’s senses (taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing) and has a enoumous positive impact on brain development.

Our Sensory Play Kits are some fun and easy ways to keep your child engaged while at the same time using sensory play to nurture their mind!

Shop our ready made play kits here.

How to Make Colored Spaghetti for Sensory Play

WILL YOU MAKE THIS DECORATE THE CHRISTMAS TREE FINE MOTOR ACTIVITY WITH YOUR KID? PIN IT FOR LATER!

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