1. Birdseed Ornaments
We made birdseed ornaments last week and my children had so much fun. We also spilled some bird seed on our front lawn in the process of making them and this resulted in quite a few extra feathered friends camping outside our house the next day! Find a full tutorial on how to make birdseed ornaments here.
2. Christmas Card Popsicle Stick Puzzles
Use last year’s Christmas cards to make Popsicle Stick Puzzles. Just glue the cards onto popsicle sticks, cut them apart, and let your children have fun putting the puzzles together.
To make it a little more challenging for older children, do three or four different puzzles and put all the popsicle sticks in a pile and let them have to sort and put the puzzles together. Impress Your Kids has a full tutorial on how to make Popsicle Stick Puzzles.
3. Button Wreaths
Turn leftover buttons and ribbon into these adorable button wreath ornaments from MarthaStewart. These would make fun gifts to give!
4. Build-Your-Own Snowflakes
My daughters have loved building felt snowflakes. They enjoy following the patterns or coming up with their own patterns. If you don’t have felt, you could also make these out of paper. Find the Build-Your-Own-Snowflake template here. If your children enjoy this activity, they would probably also enjoy building their own felt snowmen.
5. Christmas Pattern Blocks
When I saw these Christmas Pattern Blocks, I just about squealed! My children love pattern blocks, so I can wait to print these out and let them have fun match the shapes to make different Christmas pictures.
6. Snowflake Tortillas
This isn’t necessarily a Christmas activity, but we made Snowflake Tortillas last year in December and the children loved doing this! We are definitely planning to do this again this month. Find the Snowflake Tortillas recipe here.
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Crystal, thank you so much for posting the pattern block pages! My daughter loves to do these and it will be fun to have some new designs at Christmas time!
Another idea I like for old cards is to cut circles out of them (I use the mouth of a cup) and let the kids glue them onto a paper plate (with the center cut out).
If you have one that is particularly pretty, cut it into strips and punch a hole in each end of the strips. Put one metal fastener through the tops and one through the bottoms. Then spread the middles apart and it will make a ball shape. Hang it with pretty ribbon!
Love the pattern blocks! Thanks so much, Crystal! =)
What great ideas! I LOVE the button wreaths!! Those would be fabulous for kiddos to practice their fine motor coordination, and they make a decoration that looks “nice” enough for relatives to actually display in their home without it looking so obviously made by children. Very cute!!!
I have pattern blocks stashed in my gift closet and was trying to decide if I should wait until next year to give them to my daughter (she just turned 3). What’s a good age for those?
Of course every child is different, but my two youngest were playing with our pattern blocks at age 3 (and before I think!) because I have an older daughter that was using them for school activities. I let the younger ones play with a few while she was doing an actual assignment. At that time they didn’t really do the covering up designs activities, but would just make their own designs. This probably goes without saying, but, this was all with me right there by them. Some of the pieces are quite small and would be considered a choking hazard. Just wanted to comment b/c my children have loved doing pattern blocks and still do! Wouldn’t want you to miss out on something right in your closet!
Thank you so much for posting these ideas. I love the Christmas Card Popsicle Stick Puzzles. What a great idea to use your old Christmas cards. My husband makes fun of me because I always keep all of our old cards, so maybe I make him happy to by finding a use for them.
Oriental Trading is having a Free Shipping Sale today, too! Check out the “Less Than Perfect” section, I found a set of 12 reindeer mugs for $.99!
How do you get to that section on their website?
Click on ‘Sale’ on the right side, then you will see the ‘Less than perfect’ link. 🙂
Such great ideas!! What’s great about snowflake activities is they’re good all winter long!
I have a random question and was hoping someone could help. Is there any way to make my toddlers socks non-skid? He’s outgrown the baby socks with the treads on them and I’m worried he’s going to slip and get hurt on our hardwood floors.
Thanks so much for all the fun activity ideas!!!
Heather
Just put designs on the bottom of them with puff paint. When you apply it, don’t press the applicator to the sock or it flattens the paint. It takes them about 24 hours to dry, maybe more depending on how thick it is. Turn them inside out when you wash them to prevent the paint from coming off. I remember making them this way when I was little and it works great!
You can buy puffy fabric paint to put on the bottom that should work the same as the non-skid baby socks.
For non-skid socks, just get puffy fabric paint at your local craft store and decorate the bottoms of their socks. My kids made socks for special occasions and for every day use.
What cute ideas! I love the button wreaths! 🙂
Another cute idea that is very inexpensive is to make glitter ornaments by cutting out shapes(use cookie cutters) or big letters to say words for your Christmas tree. Just add glue and silver or gold glitter to spell “Joy” “Noel” etc… Hang with gold or silver thread. So pretty! Glitter is all the rage right now in the stores. 🙂
Love the snowflake tortillas! Going to add that to our list for school this week as we’re studying snow this week 🙂
Thanks so much for these exciting ideas!! We have an advent “calendar” with drawers for a different activity each day before Christmas and I’m definitely adding some of these to it.
We love pattern blocks too! THANKS! Totally unrelated to your post (sorry), but have you ever seen this: http://www.amazon.com/Orb-Factory-Magnetic-Mosaics-Kids/dp/B000J1CQ98