With Christmas one week away, what's a better time than now to plan out how you want to spend the day? The holidays can be an extra special, yet stressful time. You not only have to think and take into account what you're doing, and who you're doing it with, but also everyone's interest. When it comes to children, trying to keep them entertained and excited is a primary focus. If you're worried about what type of activities you can do with your children before or during Christmas, we've got you covered! In addition to this, we have also made a list of some gift ideas, whether you need to do some last minute shopping, or you want to create a gift yourself. We hope you all have a Merry Christmas!
Gift ideas:
Store-bought
1. Hygiene Gifts
When thinking about what to buy your children for Christmas, hygiene gifts might not be at the top of your list, but they're incredibly useful. For younger children, having their own hygiene products can promote excitement in taking care of their own body. By buying hygiene products as gifts, this can give you an opportunity to teach your children all about self care. One tip could be to find products that have similar themes to your children's interest, and build a basket. (Ex: if they like superman, find superman tooth brushes, bath towels, combs and brushes.) You can also include hygiene related toys, whether it's something like bath toys, or make believe cleaning and dental toys. For older children we suggest beauty pack baskets, with items that help take care of their hair skin and nails.
2. Hobby Gifts
If your children are into specific hobbies, buying gifts related to that hobby, and building a basket can make for a great gift. For instance, if your child likes plants, sports or the outdoors, see if you can buy early gardening tools, outdoor play toys or sports equipment. Little items related to a specific hobby, can come together and be incredibly useful.
3. Artistic Gifts
If you're shopping for a future artist, we suggest buying art supply gifts. If your child has a specific artistic interest such as photography, buying photo albums, stickers, markers and supplies to help decorate their art journals are a must. For younger children, simple art sets are also useful. You can foster their sense of creativity, and let them express themselves through multiple mediums.
4. Educational career Gifts
Some great gifts for children, come in the form of their earliest exposure to their interest. We suggest observing any interest your children have about different jobs, and finding gifts related to them. This can include early toy sets for cooking, medical sets, future scientist toys and books, or toy car sets and parts.
5. Hands-on Gifts
Another great gift option is hand-on gifts. If your children likes to build and fix things, we suggest buying gifts related o building and creating. This can include things such as toy tool kits, legos, building blocks, puzzles and, jewelry kits. The more detailed and engaging, the more your children can spend time building!
D.I.Y Gifts
Here is a list of some Do-It-Yourself gifts that you can customize to be as personal and special as you want them.
1. D.I.Y Beauty Box- You can create your own all natural beauty box for your kids. Items such as d.i.y lip balms, soaps, scrubs and lotions can all be made using natural items and scents. If your children have a favorite scent, you can add it to the items and personalize and decorate their boxes just for them.
2. Holiday ornament snacks- Get creative with a d.i.y holiday ornament snack packs. All you need is large plastic ornament filler balls, and a ton of your children's favorite snacks. We suggest even having a theme with the ornaments, such as "smores" with fillers including pack-cocoa, peppermints, marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate all wrapped up.
3. D.I.Y puzzle arts and crafts- If you're looking for a great gift that helps with not only being creative, but practicing your colors and numbers, we suggest making your own puzzle arts and crafts gift. Choose a large image that you want to separate into puzzle pieces. Lay a print out of your image over a large piece of cardboard paper and glue the pieces together. We also suggest laminating the finished image. Next, cut out the images into puzzle pieces. You can practice putting the puzzle together, by asking your children to help fit all the certain color pieces together. (Ex: find all the blue pieces for the sky). Another tip is to number your pieces, and see if the children can correctly place the pieces in order by numbers.
4. D.I.Y play doh and slime set
Another awesome and easy to do gift is play doh and slime. Your this gift, you can gather all of the ingredients, and place them into separate colorful baggies, with written instructions. Take time to help your children create the play doh and slime. You can also experiment with different colors and textures, or follow our previous fizzing slime recipe for a fun experiment.
5. D.I.Y recycled arts and craft kit
For this gift, all you will need is various arts and crafts items, or mix things up and get creative in using recycled items to create your crafts. Instead of throwing away old and worn down toys and clothes, encourage your children to re-purpose them themselves. Collect old fabric, cardboard, decorative items and anything else you can think of. Come up with a theme or end item that you want to create, and ask your children in helping you make it. (Ex: help me create a spaceship, doll house, pillow). This gift is a great opportunity to spend time in putting together a creative activity.
Activities:
Infants
1. Christmas painting- For this activity, let your infant experiment with paint and color as they make their own Christmas paintings. All they will need is White, Red, and Green paint, and construction paper. This is a sensory activity, that gives your infants a chance to play and experiment in the paint, while building fine motor development as they use their fingers and hands to make their paintings.
2.Christmas sensory bags- In this activity, your infant will observe and interact with different sensory Christmas bags. Fill multiple plastic zip lock bags full of various Christmas items. This can include one bag full of tinsel, one bad full of wrapping paper, and another bag full of fuzzy green "pine" pipe cleaners. Your infant can spend time exploring each bag and its contents, gaining a sense of what each item is,and how they interact with it.
3. Sensory Christmas board- Make your own Christmas sensory board for your infant. Use a large cutout piece of cardboard and attach multiple Christmas items to it, such as velvet Santa hat, cotton ball beard, tinsel and ribbon, and plastic ornaments filled with beads. This board can help stimulate your infants senses, while keeping them entertained and amazed.
4. Christmas bells-In this sensory activity, your infants can explore the science behind Christmas bells. Find Christmas bells of various sizes, and guide your infants to interact with them. They can be amazed at the noises they make, and expand on their hearing, seeing and touching senses. Compare and contrast the different bells and how loud or quiet they are.
5. Sensory Santa craft face- Introduce your infants to Santa in this cute sensory craft activity. Create a Santa face out of various items that stimulate the senses. This includes fuzzy and fluffy cotton ball beards, squishy eyes, bendy glasses and soft Santa hat.
Toddlers
1. Elf matching craft- Let your toddlers create their own little Christmas elves by matching multiple felt fabric sheet pieces together to create their elves. We suggest making the elf's outfit as colorful as possible, and pointing out each of the different colors. (Where are the elf's green pants?) This activity helps build on color and pattern recognition for your infant.
2. Magnet jingle bell experiment- Have our toddlers experiment with magnets and Jingle bells in this fun activity. Gather any container of your choice (ex: bowl, plastic bottle) and place a handful of jingle bells in them.Glue small magnet pieces onto Popsicle sticks, and give them to your toddler. Guide and show them how the bells stick to the magnets. Your children will strengthen their fine motor and muscle skills, as they pinch and pull at the magnets and bells.
3. Sensory Ornaments- Make your own sensory ornaments in this neat activity. All you will need is medium sized plastic ornament filler balls. Gather various craft items that you can fill and decorate your ornament with. As a bonus, you can even fill half of an ornament with small craft items, and then will the rest of the ornament with water; before sealing the ornament. Your toddler will explore all the items using their hands, as well as observe the different noises they make by shaking the ornaments.
4. Reindeer coloring Sheet
Here is a link to a free printable sheet that features a cute reindeer coloring art!
5. D.I.Y Playdoh "cookies"- A fun activity that lets children create their own playdoh following our previous playdoh recipe. You can then use the playdoh to make cookies and have children decorate them. You can even bake them to make them last longer. This activity lets children be creative and develop their senses including sight, and touch.
Preschool
1. Hand wreath art activity- For this activity, children will make their own Christmas wreaths out of the shape of their hands. All you will need is construction paper, scissors, tape and markers. Help trace out multiple stencils of your children's hands on various colored pages. Help them cut out each hand, then have them tape their hands in the shape of a wreath. Ask them to make as many different shaped ornaments they can think of, to decorate their wreaths. This activity helps with not only large and fine motor coordination, but color and shape recognition as well.
2. Mixing colors melting candy experiment- In this science activity, children will observe different candy melting, and how their colors react. All you will need is a bowl, some warm water, and any candy of your choice. We recommend candy that has multiple colors, such as peppermint pieces. arrange your candy in your bowl and pour warm water over it. Watch as the candy begins to melt, and the colors swirl into themselves.
3. Alphabet string lights- In this activity, children will practices their letters as they make their own string Christmas lights. Start by tracing out light bulb shapes onto construction paper of various colors. Once you have your light bulbs, write out each letter on one bulb. Have the children practice stringing the bulbs together, by going over their ABC'S or by making simple three letter words.
4. Shape and number sheet activity
Here is a link to a free printable worksheet that features a color by number coloring wreath activity!
5. Baking- This activity utilizes multiple senses including: Taste, smell, watching, hearing and feeling: Baking and decorating sugar cookies children will use all 5 senses for this activity as they will need to listen to directions and will be able to hear the sound of the sprinkles, they will watch the cookie dough form and change into a solid cookie, smell the yummy scent of the cookies baking plus all of the scents from the indigents and finally will be able to taste their cookies.
School age
1. Disco sparkly ornament- In this activity, children will create their own sparkly ornaments. All you will need is Styrofoam balls, ribbon, sequins and a pack of needles. Using your needles, place one sequin on the needle and push it into the Styrofoam ball. Continue this process until you have covered the entire ball. If you don't want to use sequins, you can also use multi colored pom poms and glue. When you're finished, use a hook needle pinned into the top, and tie a ribbon around it. This is a fun and creative activity, that let's your children create their own tree decorations.
2. Cookie ornaments- Children can make their own cookie ornaments in this delicious and fun activity. All you will need is any flavored cookie dough, multi colored hard candies, and cookie cutters. Begin by choosing what shaped cookie you want to make. You can ask your children questions about whether they can name and recognize the different shapes. Next, have them choose what pattern they want to make within the cookie. Spend time naming the different colors, and counting how many candies do they think they will need. Next, roll out your dough, and make two cookie cutouts. Lay the first cutout on the tray then place the second one on top, and make a smaller cutout within this cutout. This should leave you with a cutout shaped hole, which you will put your candy in. Bake for at least 8 to 10 minutes, until your candy has melted and your cookies are cooked. Decorate however you want and then you have your ornaments!
3. Snowflake math activity- Using multi-colored pipe cleaners and beads, have your children create their own snowflake crafts. Come up with a snowflake design using your pipe cleaners. When you're finished, next set out a pattern using your beads. String the beads and follow the pattern to make your snowflake. As you create, ask the children math questions related to how many beads they use or how many pipe cleaners. You can also set out categories, such as "how many blue beads do we need?" "How many white beads can fit on this one green pipe cleaner?" Your children can gain a better understanding with their numbers and addition, as well as form color and pattern recognition skills.
4. Christmas research- In this activity, children will research the history behind Christmas. With your help, have the children come up with multiple questions surrounding Christmas. This can include things such as
-"What is Christmas?
-"Who celebrates Christmas?'
-"When is Christmas?"
"What do we eat during Christmas?"
This activity helps bring more information to children about the holiday, and gives them insights into many traditions and celebrations.
5. Vocab matching pattern sheet activity-
Here is a link to a fun free printable Christmas vocabulary worksheet activity!