Tag Archives: Christmas

Handprint Wreath

15 Dec

 

My 2-year-old is still very into tracing her hands and feet, so when we needed an activity for this week’s Toddler School and with the upcoming holiday, this was perfect.

Handprint Wreath

What you need:

Paper plate
Green construction paper
Red construction paper
Scissors
Glue

How to make it:

Cut a hole in the center of the paper plate.

Fold 2 pieces of green construction paper in half.  Trace the child’s hand on one side of each piece of paper, then keep paper folded while you cut.  This gets you 4 handprints at once, 8 total.  Cut some small circles of red construction paper for the berries.

Glue the green hands on the bottom of the paper plate, around the opening.  Glue on berries.  Enjoy your new decoration!

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Paper Snowflakes

8 Dec

 

I loved making these every year when I was a kid.  Actually, I still enjoy making them!  It’s another cheap, quick craft that you can do with your children, younger children you will need to help them with the scissors though.  It’s also a great way to recycle old newsletters from school, or sheets that didn’t print right in the printer, or whatever paper you have laying around.  You can attach a string to it to hang from the ceiling, or just tape it up on the wall.  I’m going to show you one way to fold, there are other ways to fold to get more points on your snowflake.  Play around with it, get creative.  Remember, no 2 snowflakes are ever the same!

What you need:

Paper
Scissors

How to make them:

Start with a piece of white printer paper.

Fold it in half.

Fold in half again.

Fold diagonally to make a triangle.

Now, I like to cut off that extra paper on the right.

Now, you make cuts to make the snowflake design.

Unfold and see your snowflake!

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Footprint Handprint Reindeer

5 Dec

My 2-year-old brought me some paper and a crayon today, and wanted me to trace her hands.  After her hands, she wanted to trace her feet.  Since it is the holiday season, I remembered a craft idea I had seen before that was a reindeer using the outline of your child’s hand and foot.  It’s an easy, quick craft, and brought such delight to my 2-year-old this morning!

 

What you need:

Brown construction paper or cardboard, or white paper that you can color brown
Another color construction paper for the antlers.  I chose red, but a darker brown or black would work too.
Red or black construction paper for the nose
Eyes, or you can draw them on if you don’t have eyes
Scissors
Glue
Crayon, pen, or pencil for tracing and drawing if you will be drawing on eyes, nose, and mouth

How to make it:

Trace your child’s foot on the brown construction paper.  Cut out.  Trace your child’s hands on the other color paper.  Cut out.  Cut out a circle for the nose.  Glue the hands on the top of the footprint to look like antlers.  Glue or draw the eyes and nose.

 

My construction paper was kind of thin, so I also glued a craft stick to the back of it to give it more structure and so my daughter could use it as a puppet or to play with.  She has been showing it to everyone today, she’s so proud of what she made.  This would be a fun activity to do every year to see how much their feet and hands have grown in the last year.

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Free Christmas Fun for the Kids

3 Dec

If you celebrate Christmas with Santa, there are some fun, free online activities you can do for your kids.

Portable North Pole: Here, you can create a personalized video for your child from Santa.  You can enter their name for him to say, and for my kids, when they heard Santa say their name, their eyes lit up!  You can also decide if they are on the nice or naughty list, put in pictures so children can see their entry in Santa’s nice or naughty list,  and add in a specific toy on their list.

 

Elf Yourself: You enter pictures of your family and/or friends that are placed on elf bodies that dance around to your choice of music.  The first year I did this, my oldest was almost 1, and she wanted to watch it non-stop.  Then, there was only 1 dance to choose, but now there are 9 dances to choose from.

 

NORAD Santa Countdown and Tracker: Every year, NORAD has a Santa tracker, where you can track Santa’s location on Christmas eve as he flies around the world.  They now have added to this by having some information about some of the cities Santa travels to, so you learn along the way too.  They have also added the Countdown Village, where a new game/activity opens up each day until Christmas.  My oldest and I have had a lot of fun with the games available so far.

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