As the weather gets colder and there is less outside play, oh believe me we still bundle up, I have to explore creative fun inside activities. My youngest loves to sit at our well-worn play table and create masterpieces with playdough. He usually likes to mix every color and then gets mad when he cant find the one color he wants. We solved this by making our own! A fast trip to Pinterest brought me to Mommy in Sports "Homemade Peppermint Playdough Recipe." It was quick, easy, and we added peppermint essential oil, which added the perfect Christmas scent. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but we mixed in glitter to help glisten the snow dough.
After making the playdough, we pulled out the holiday cookie cutters and my son chose the Christmas trees. I decided to use the millions of tiny beads, gems, and string my daughters' have lying around for making bracelets. They made the perfect ornaments, lights, garland for these mini-peppermint trees.
I like to use my multi-portion tray that at one point stored my homemade baby food, when my littles were much littler {sigh}. I somehow misplaced the cover, so I just ordered a new silicone food storage container from Amazon. It's easy to keep little pieces, like beads, ribbon, pompoms, etc. compartmentalized and helps with their fine motor skills when they reach in to grab the pieces.
The final product turned out adorable. We spread cotton snow at the bottom and, voila, tiny peppermint perfection.
The next craft that my kids enjoyed was as simple as can be. I used Glad Press 'N Seal and taped it, sticky side out, to the window. Then my kiddos ran away with their imagination. I gathered cotton balls, foam shapes, and pompoms to use to create winter scenes. They cut out different shapes to make Santa and his reindeer, which reviewed shapes and practiced their cutting skills. Everything stuck right onto the contact paper.
My son made Santa riding a reindeer, while flying over a winter forest. My daughter decided to draw Santa's arm coming out of a snowbank, because he fell off his reindeer. Meanwhile, Santa's satchel is also flying though the air while presents litter the sky. Oh, to be 3 and 5 again.
Another craft that we all loved from Happy Toddler Playtime was making Giant Gingerbread people. We used craft paper that we had from our easel. It wasn't big enough, so I had to tape two pieces together to make a larger sheet. The kids traced themselves and then I let them use any and everything we had on hand: markers, ribbons, stamps, glitter, foam shapes, whatever they wanted to decorate their people.
The kids made jewelry, belts, buttons for their people. They were super creative and they took their time making these adorable {semi-scary} giant gingerbread people. We ended up cutting ours out and the kids proudly displayed them in the window of the playroom.
I always turn to crafts when I need some more of a creative, yet semi-structured play. Playing Barbies, dinosaurs, family, and all the other games my kids like to invent are fun, but sometimes mama needs a bit of a play break and these holiday crafts are the perfect way to get some fun family time, without having to stomp around the playroom like a Parasaurolophus (my three-year-old's newest obsession).
Thanks! Trying to fill sooo much time these days.
Love it! Great craft ideas I will be stealing