Welcome to my December activities for kids post! Every month of 2021 I have put together some simple ideas for you and your children to make and create together at home. If you’re new to my seasonal activities post then welcome! Each month we share a mixture of indoor ideas, outdoor ideas, recipes and resources.
The reason I decided to start sharing seasonal play ideas came from my love of the change of seasons. I love to note and celebrate the seasons in terms of nature, decor, food, and everything in between. Mix that with my childcare background and this monthly post became a place to produce some inspiration for kids’ activities for every month of the year.
This month is such a joy to write as a month that has so many crafts and activity possibilties to theme around. I have included some old favourites as well as some new ideas. There is most definitely a tree theme going on, after being inspired to make Pick a Pine Tree play dough kits this year for my small business Bear and Boo Home
I have now reached the last edition of my monthly seasonal play posts for the year and I’m excited to share some fun play ideas with you. I hope I will return in the New Year with some more seasonal play posts, I’m just not sure yet what format they will take going forward.
Indoor December Activities for kids
Christmas Play Dough Trees
Al you need is :
- Cardboard
- Green Playdough
- Loose Parts – such as wooden shapes, coloured chickpeas, pom poms, pipe cleaners etc
We drew a tree on some Amazon packaging and let the littles loose on decorating their own trees.
Gingerbread Cloud Dough
Make a gingerbread man, scoop, pour and build. Whatever they want to do with this sensory mix.
Simple to make using:
8 Cups of flour
1 Cup of Vegetable Oil
1 Tbsp Cinnamon
1 Tbsp Ground Ginger
Mix together and the consistency should be not too dry or wet so adjust accordingly with more flour or oil as required. You should be able to shape the dough and also be able to crumble it easily.
Note You may find that you may have to add in a couple of extra Tbsp of vegetable oil if your recipe is too crumbly.
Santa Searchers
These festive binoculars are perfect for searching out Santa on Christmas Eve! We love a cardboard tube craft and this one is super cute for toddlers and preschoolers to make.
- Cardboard toilet rolls
- String
- Craft embellishments
Driving Home for Christmas
Another sensory play idea. This one can be a little messy so a good tray is an essential or even bathtub!
- Play foam Soap or 1/2 cup of bubble path whisked up with 1/4 cup of water ratio
- Vehicles
- Wooden Trees
Pine Cone Christmas Trees
- Log slices
- Pinecones
- Mini pom poms, pipe cleaners or wool
- Optional pens to decorate -We use Decco pens from Baker Ross that work really well on wood.
These make fab homemade ornamental gifts for relatives
Christmas Tree Crumpets
- Christmas Tree Crumpets
- Pizza sauce
- Cheese
- Veggies / meat toppings
It’s fairly easy to pick up Christmas tree crumpets from most supermarkets at this time of year. I picked ours up from M&S. Mine love making pizzas of any form and this is a cheats way of doing it! I love the fact the peppers and sweetcorn resemble tinsel and bauble decorations.
Christmas Pudding Biscuits
We love an easy iced biscuit recipe ( not that I can really call it a recipe!). We have done various ones over the years and so far this is one of my favourites.
- Chocolate Digestives
- Icing – Icing sugar mixed with water
- Cake Decor sprinkles (purchased in Sainsburys)
I think mine were the only ones that actually looked like Christmas puddings as the kids chucked hundreds and thousands of sprinkles at theirs!
Banana Snowmen
A slightly healthier food art compared to the above. This is a fun idea for preschoolers and young children to make and then enjoy at mealtimes or snack times.
- Bananas
- Cocktail sticks
- Berries and Raisins
Outdoor December Activities for Kids
The following two activities can be done indoors or outdoors or a mix of both.
Eco Reindeer Food
This is a great activity in so many ways. It hits lots of early years maths targets through measuring, scooping and pouring, helps with fine motor skills whilst also demonstrating knowledge and understanding the world. The knowledge and understanding of the world comes from this being an eco friendly recipe that can help feed birds and wildlife as well as Santa’s Reindeers.
We used
- Oats, muesli, and Oatmeal
- You could also use desiccated coconut, nuts,seeds, bird food and mixed dried fruit.
- Christmas baking edible sugar sprinkles to give it that magical touch to it, as a replacement for glitter.
Nature Christmas Tree
I told you it was a Christmas tree heavy post! This activity is more suited to slightly older children as we used a hot glue gun. You could probably attempt it with just string but we felt it more stable to us glue. The end result is pretty affective and I wold love to make a larger version for a widow display one.
- Sticks
- String
- Decs – Either craft embellishments or make an entirely nature tree with berries and firs etc.
Resources
I love sharing our monthly round up of seasonal books and resources. We enjoy so many Christmas and Winter stories. I have tried to round them up to this smaller selection of our favourites!
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