The winter holidays are full of really great opportunities for arts and crafts with your toddler. Involving your children in the holiday traditions helps in a number of ways. It can make them feel more involved, prevent boredom, increase bonding, and even help them develop dexterity and creativity. This winter break, try out some of these preschool holiday activities with your toddler.
Bake Holiday Cookies
Preparing food with your toddler is a great bonding experience, and it’s one of the best preschool holiday activities. Molding dough is great for building dexterity and hand strength in toddlers, plus it also empowers their imagination.
Your child can create holiday-themed shapes that you can then bake into delicious treats to give as gifts to family or friends, or leave out as a treat for any gift-bearing nighttime visitors. Investing time and effort into making a gift will help your toddler feel more connected to it, and therefore more excited when they see the joy and happiness it brings to the person receiving the gift.
Create Holiday Decorations
Decorating the house can be a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Help your toddler feel the holiday spirit by creating some decorations. With some red construction paper, a pair of scissors, some cotton balls, and glue, they can create handmade candy cane decorations that you can hang around the house.
Another fun preschool holiday activity is to have your toddler craft a holiday wreath. As a fair warning, this activity can get a little messy, so protect your crafting surface with some newspaper or drop cloth. You’ll need a large piece of white paper, green paint, a red bow, and some fun decorations like glitter, plastic jewels, or multi-colored pom poms.
Draw a large circle on the paper. Pour the green paint in a tray and have your toddler dip their hand in. Placing the bottom of their palm on the line of the circle, press their hand into the paper to make a print. Repeat the process all the way around the circle, overlapping hand prints. You should have a green wreath made entirely of your toddler’s handprints. While the paint is still wet, your child can sprinkle glitter around the wreath, or they can glue decorations to it once the paint is dry. The finished product is a handmade holiday decoration you can hang the house.
Clothespin Reindeer
One of the more popular preschool holiday activities is the clothespin reindeer. For this project, you need three clothespins, brown paint, some googly eyes, glue, and a small red pom pom for the nose.
Paint all the clothespins brown. Once the paint is dry, glue two clothespins together as the body and legs, and then glue the third one to the edge, going the opposite direction. This one will be the head of the reindeer, with antlers. After the body is set, your child can glue the googly eyes and pom pom nose to the head of the reindeer. Attach a string to it, and the finished product is an ornament that you can keep for years to come.
Preschool Holiday Activities Are Fun For Everyone
Encouraging your child to perform these preschool holiday activities over their winter break can foster a lot of quality family bonding time. You can keep the decorations your child makes as keepsakes for the future, or you can give them as homemade gifts to family or friends. Many people love to receive a homemade gift from a child, and it helps involve your toddler in the holiday spirit of giving. In addition, it will keep their skills sharp while they’re away from school, allowing them to adjust more easily back into a schedule when the break is over. All of these crafts involve creativity and imagination while also helping fine tune motor skills.
Home Away From Home Academy is an innovative preschool located on the border of Holmdel and Aberdeen, NJ. Our philosophy is that children have an instinctive need to learn from birth. By exposing them early on to enjoyable activities that also teach basic skills, parents can set their children on the early path to learning. We offer a range of programs that will guide your toddler from preschool all the way to second grade. If you’re interested in learning more, give us a call and find out what sets us apart.