We turn off all the lights and use battery-operated candles for light. The students get a somewhat healthy meal or enough to serve as a snack and they love the novelty of the entire set up.
The first year we did this, it was supposed to be a week-long project for the 6th-8th grade group. They enjoyed building the castles so much that they spent two weeks on just that!
I have done this every year since. First bake the cones on a foil-lined cookie sheet for about an hour at degrees. This kills any bugs or spider mites or who knows what else! This also allows the seeds to fall out. If you want the pine cone to close up again, just plunge it in cold water! Turn a protected section of your program or school yard into a nature shelter.
In the cold weather- birds, squirrels and other small wildlife are in constant search of food, fresh water and safe shelter. Set up a bird feeder, bird bath and bird house where you and the children will be able to quietly observe.
Materials: Cardboard wreaths Make templates of wreath shapes to trace or make a wreath shape from very small paper plates Peanut butter Birdseed Popcorn. Cut wreath shapes out of cardboard. Give each child a wreath and a plastic knife to spread peanut butter over the wreath shape.
Put birdseed over the peanut butter covered wreath. Hang the wreaths outside where they will be seen! Good for birds and other outdoor creatures….
Tie a knot with a Cheerio on it at the other end. Invite children to help you until the entire chain is strung.
Poke a hole with a plastic straw at the top of each orange slice. Thread with raffia or ribbon and tie each slice to a branch. Invite them to spread peanut butter on the bread with a plastic knife and then sprinkle on birdseed. Poke a hole at the top with a plastic straw. Thread with raffia or yarn. Together decorate the outdoor bushes and low trees branches with the decorations. You can celebrate the season of giving and do your bit to help out Mother Earth at the same time.
Try tickets to a show, a ball game, or a scenic train ride instead of dust-collecting knickknacks. Take public transportation if it is available. Look Ma! No parking fees! This is a great activity for the kids! After the holidays you can hang the strings outside for the birds to enjoy. Good sources include church fairs, craft shows, local boutiques, and flea markets. Choose paper or cloth ribbon, or colored twine instead of plastic ribbon.
By: Vanessa Greaves. There you have it, 32 Christmas games for children. These games and activities are sure to deliver joy and fun to the little ones you are trying to entertain. Need more great Christmas activity ideas? Make sure you checkout some of the links below. Anything from snowman ideas to Christmas tongue twisters, we have it all. You must be logged in to post a comment. Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to purchase through my links, at no cost to you.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Have your children squish and mold toilet paper rolls to make antlers for the reindeer and a third toilet paper roll for the head. Then dip the toilet paper rolls in paint to make a Christmas scene. All you need to do is supply the paint and dip their hands in paint and press them on paper and draw the rest of the Christmas object.
A handprint can be used to make:. Although your children can always use cookie cutters for Christmas shapes, they can make Play-Doh Christmas cookies and candies as well as gingerbread houses.
These indoor activities for kids foster imagination while allowing you to get some work done in the meantime. Buy some dot paint markers instead of paintbrushes to have your children dot paint a winter wonderland scene! Grab your coats, mittens, and snow boots and have your children find a patch of untouched snow to gather up to make ice cream out of snow. You can find the recipe here! Take Kraft paper and tape it on a wall.
Then have your children use watercolors and brushes to create a North Pole scene. Look around the house for common items with shapes and have your child trace around the object. For instance, a soup can circle can be traced and three circles in a row then become a picture of a snowman!
Pre-cut kitchen sponges into Christmas shapes and have your children dip the shapes into the paint to stamp the designs on paper. The easiest Christmas shapes to cut out of sponges are carol bells, trees, and candy canes. Supply your children with Playdough to roll out into a line to mold a basic outline of common shapes like stars, circles, and triangles.
This activity helps your children become familiar with common shapes. Shape buttons can be purchased to help your children sort different shapes. Simply have your kids sort through shape buttons and make piles of each shape. Dot it out helps your children learn basic shapes along with counting skills.
Gather some pom poms and a piece of paper with basic shapes printed on them. All your children need to do is place the pom poms on the shape outlines. They can learn the shape and count the pom poms out loud as they go along. Read the article Teaching Shapes To Preschoolers for more fun activities for kids involving shapes:. Use toy cars to teach social skills and play sequences!
Plus, adding in fun activities like washing cars and racing can help your child learn new vocabulary like:. Q-Tips can help your kids hone their fine motor skills by practicing their pincer grip. All they need is Q-Tips and paint to practice painting letters, numbers, and words. Simply take foam sheets and hole punch holes through it. Then have your children thread a shoelace through the holes.
This is a calming activity that can be used anytime you need some quiet time in the house to finish your work for the day. Another one of the winter activities to develop fine motor skills. Just have your children string beads onto pipe cleaners. Dump cornmeal onto a baking sheet and have your kids use their fingers to trace numbers, letters, and even words if they are able. Clothespins are hard to open.
It requires a great deal of pincer strength! Have your children practice placing clothespins on cards with numbers on them. For instance, if the card has a number three with three dots, they attach three clothespins to the card. After all these activities, and running around, it is time to snuggle up in front of the TV, a good book, or an awesome app. Enjoy the classics and find new favorites on our list of Christmas stories and movies!
Keeping connected with family you cannot see in person is vital during the holidays! Take some time away from work and homeschooling to help your children facetime far-away loved ones like Grandma and Grandpa. Both apps from Speech Blubs help increase speech, language, and reading skills. Many families become stir crazy during the winter months. Instead, try one of the many outdoor and indoor fun activities from the list above and Christmas for kids can be a blast! Work on imitation and articulation skills, build vocabulary to express needs, and converse more!
Set your personalised goals now and start learning. Speech Blubs is a learning app for everyone: If you want to work on language development or your child has a speech delay, autism, Down syndrome, hearing loss, tongue tie, cleft palate, or Apraxia — kids find this app very helpful. You get free access to Parents Academy and educational videos about speech development in the app.
You can even talk to our speech therapist if you have concerns! If you are still unsure, watch our free webinar with speech therapist Tori or join our Facebook Group for parents. All content provided on this website is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for independent professional medical judgement, advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. If you want to make a start without Besides just being fun, music is a great way to teach kids, especially kids who struggle with language delays. The rhythm of the music and Your email address will not be published. Select your topic. Most popular. Child Development 23 Language Development Autism 33 Down Syndrome 11 Special Needs 6. Set up a fun scavenger hunt in which the kids search for Santa's reindeer, which you've hidden around the party space.
Depending on the age of the children you have at the party, hide the reindeer in easy-to-spot locations or tuck them away to make them more difficult to find. The game suggests hiding small reindeer figurines, but you can make reindeer for free by using printable reindeer coloring pages. To play this game, fill a large stocking with items around the house, and then the kids guess what's in the stocking. The items in the stocking should be Christmas-themed, such as ornaments, pinecones, and bows.
The guest who guesses the most items wins a prize. This Christmas party game for kids will help keep their minds sharp as they try to recall items that were placed before them. There are two more variations to this game: One in which you ask specific questions about the items, and the other one in which you trick the kids into what exactly they were supposed to remember. This free printable game includes the face and a whole bunch of noses, so each child can have their turn. Pin the Red Nose on Rudolph from Untumble.
Santa Says is a fun take on that classic game Simon Says that's a great way to end a Christmas party for kids. Be sure to include things that Santa would do such as delivering presents, sliding down the chimney, and reading a Christmas wish list.
Santa Says from The Resourceful Mama. How fast can kids wrap a present? You'll find out in this gift wrap relay. Split the group into teams, then have them race to wrap a present. The first round should be an easy-to-wrap present, such as a box. Gradually make the presents harder to wrap without ripping the paper. Here's another relay Christmas game for kids: Each child puts on a pair of mittens and then unwraps a small piece of candy while wearing them—it's harder than it sounds!
You could even pair this activity with watching one of the Christmas movies recommended above. Our list of Christmas activities for kids would not be complete without a visit or picture with Santa! Luckily, many places are reinstating these Christmas activities in ! If you are planning for additional holiday photoshoots around the house with your child, we have a great list of tips for taking pictures of children.
Make some hot cocoa, pour a cup for each member of the family, and head out in the car in search of the best Christmas light displays for some memorable family bonding.
You may know a couple of neighborhoods that always go above and beyond each winter. Some cities and towns even have a professionally made light display or experience that charges admission.
If you are lucky, you will come across a light display that is synched up with music for one of the most memorable Christmas activities for families. Sometimes hiding the candy canes can be more fun than hunting for them. This is a great activity if you have multiple children.
Just like an Easter egg hunt, these fun Christmas activities are appropriate for almost any age group. Spread some candy canes around the house and the children can collect them in a Christmas stocking instead of an Easter basket.
You could even purchase a variety of colors of candy canes and give out prizes for the largest collection to add to the excitement.
You could pair this at-home Christmas activity with almost all of our other suggestions to boost your holiday spirit to the next level. Whether you tune in to a holiday-specific radio station or find a holiday-themed channel on an internet-streaming service, you can rest assured knowing there are plenty of options for Christmas songs around the clock. If you play a musical instrument, you could learn a few Christmas songs and print the lyrics for your children to sing along as you play.
Making your own Christmas popsicles is one of the most colorful Christmas activities for kids on our list. With a simple popsicle mold and a few ingredients, you can make this activity come to life. To make an all-green popsicle: In a blender, mix pineapple, banana, apple juice, spinach, and coconut milk. Add in more spinach if you desire a darker shade of green. Pour the mixture in the mold and freeze.
To make an all-red popsicle: Use all the same ingredients as above but substitute strawberries, raspberries, or cherries in place of spinach. You could even use a combination of all three of those options! To make a half-green half-red popsicle: First, start with the green mixture and fill the popsicle mold halfway. Freeze the mold overnight. The next day you can then fill the rest of the mold with the red mixture and freeze again for at least four hours. Pine cones fall during late autumn, so the timing is perfect for a fun Christmas activity involving art for your kids.
Whether you collect some pine cones off the ground or purchase them at the local craft store, your children are bound to have some fun making them their own. Some decorating tools include:. Purchase a fun craft kit online and have your kids focus their concentration on stitching an elf together from scratch, building a toy airplane or train out of wood, or decorating ornament molds with fluorescent paint gel.
This is one of those rare Christmas activities for kids of all ages, from toddlers to teens. Share pictures of their creations on social media or in your holiday card so friends and family can feel as if they were involved with the fun. Sure you could pick up a Christmas tree at the local mega-store or parking lot pop-up, but the holiday season is about creating memories! A fun Christmas activity for adults and kids could involve driving out to a Christmas tree farm and hand-selecting the tree that you think will look best in your home.
In some cases, you may even need to cut the tree down and transport it back to your car. While the process takes longer, we have a feeling the memory will last a little longer too.
Warm up this holiday season with a festive cocktail that will put you in the Christmas spirit. Just add a touch of peppermint schnapps to your favorite hot cocoa recipe and top it off with whipped cream. Pair your potent potable with other fun Christmas activities, like watching a holiday movie or singing Christmas carols.
For even more themed adult beverage ideas, be sure to read through our post on holiday cocktail recipes featuring vodka, gin, or whiskey.
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