As the holiday season approaches, I really wanted to take this time to do some fun Christmas activities with my four year old son.  Now that he’s older, he’s starting to understand things and it’s becoming a lot easier to communicate with him.  It’s also a great way to create your own family traditions so that one day you can look back at everything you did with your little one. 

            In my son’s preschool class they are working on a many different Christmas crafts.  However, I wanted to put my own spin on things here at home.  I have used many different resources for ideas.  Pinterest has been one of my favorites by far! They have so many great craft ideas for toddlers/preschoolers, for more awesome ideas you can follow me by clicking the link: http://www.pinterest.com/reinagonzalez33/.  Although my daughter is only 18 months old, I still plan to use her little hands in some finger-paint for homemade ornaments.  It’s a great keepsake, and also gifts for special loved ones. 

            Here are some simple Christmas Crafts for toddlers that we have been working on at home to get into the holiday spirit.

 

1. Turn your ordinary door into a snowman.

            What a great way to add some special holiday decor to your home.  I found this great idea on pinterest (Of course).  The idea originally had garland and lights around the door, and they used some type of card stock for the scarf.  I decided to do Tinsel garland for the scarf, and the other parts were very simple.  You will need black and orange construction paper (thick cut if possible) Tape, and whatever you chose for the scarf.  You can have your toddler/preschooler help cut out the eyes, mouth, and buttons using preschool training scissors.  You can add whatever you want to dress up your door, it’s super festive and really easy to do! 🙂

 

2. Paint and Cotton Candy Canes:

           

My son made a very cool craft in school this week.  It was a cutout of a Candy cane, which they painted red.  After it dried, they glued cotton balls and it’s a super cute Candy Cane.  Great decor for your windows or kitchen area.  You can do this with finger paint or a brush, whichever you prefer both are great for fine motor skills.  We are also going to work on some “hand” made ornaments and hang them on the tree.  I have noticed that my son, because he’s so busy all the time he would rather paint than color.  SO I try to do more crafts and activities this way.  But you can chose whatever way works best for your little one.

 

3. Glitter-full Snowflakes:

            I remember as a kid we would make snowflakes using an origami technique by cutting the edges of the paper and insides.  Once you open the paper, it had really cool designs- remember those?  Today, they have even better supplies I found a pack of 12 snowflakes (cut out) blue and white and the great part is they were only one dollar! I found them at Target in the dollar section, now they have a bigger selection so make sure to check it out.

              So my son and I used  regular school glue (not stick or paste) and sprinkled glitter over the glue.  My son really loved this.  It was really messy, so make sure to put some old newspaper or towels on the floor.  I still am cleaning up glitter so be prepared for a little mess in your workshop 🙂 You can also put these on your windows or door, I did it in my kitchen and spread them out. 

            I also added a Christmas tree advent calendar.  Every day we place stickers over the numbers to countdown the days till Christmas.  I also found this for one dollar.

 

4. Clothespin Ornaments:

            I found this at Target (that’s weird, I think I go there too much, HAHA). I thought it was a really cool idea! I never thought to make ornaments from clothespins.  So I just bought the kit, but I will post pictures of them on my face book page for you all to see once we create them. 

 

            So there is a short but simple list of crafts for you and your little ones.  It’s a great opportunity to teach them about Christmas.  We are very spiritual in our home, so we are teaching our kids the traditions but explaining to them what they mean and why we celebrate.  I printed out some great coloring pages from Raising our Kids.com, here is the link if you’re interested. http://www.raisingourkids.com/coloring-pages/holiday/christmas/pages/christian.html

 

            Thanks for stopping in mommies, I hope you all have the opportunity to do some fun Christmas activities with your little ones.  Tune in for more topics like this for the month of December.  Let’s keep striving for mommy success! 🙂

 

 

XOXO,

Reina