This is the perfect time of year to get crafty with your preschool kids. There is nothing more satisfying than digging around in drawers and coming up with some cheerful, fun decorations than will brighten your home and get you family feeling festive. These preschool crafts are not only fun for the whole family but could also teach preschoolers about different holiday traditions and cultures.
Preschooler’s ‘Handy’ Christmas Tree
Your preschooler will love getting hands-on to make this adorable, free-standing, Christmas tree.
You’ll Need:
- An empty plastic soda bottle (choose the size according to how tall you want your tree to be.)
- Sand & a funnel
- A few sheets of thin green cardboard & 1 large one, twice the height of your bottle
- Thin marker
- Double-sided tape
- Circles, stars or stickers for tree decorations
- A light-weight star or angel for the top
How To:
Step 1 – The Base:
- Pour enough sand into the empty soda bottle to keep it from toppling over.
- Drill or punch a small hole in the plastic lid before closing the bottle.
Step 2 – The Tree Leaves:
- Leafy base: Cut out a green cardboard circle from the large sheet. Slit it from the edge to the center. Slide one edge of the slit under the other until your cardboard forms a cone. Glue or sticky tape it in place.
- Leaves: Trace around your child’s hand with the thin marker and cut out the hand shape. Repeat this several times until you have enough handprints to cover your cone. Start along the bottom of the cone and glue the handprints on, with fingers protruding off the base like leaves. Overlap them to give a nice bushy effect.
- Attach leaves to cone. Work one row at a time. Keep gluing rows of handprints until you reach the top of the cone.
Step 3 – Assemble Your Handy Christmas Tree
- Attach the leaf-covered cone to the bottle using a line of double-sided tape.
- Attach a star or angel to a bamboo skewer. Insert it through the tip of the cardboard cone and the hole in the lid.
Step 4 – Add Decorations
- Decorate the hand-leaves using circles, stars or stickers.
Paper Christmas Angel
This little angel is super-easy and fun to make, even for preschoolers. It can be used on greeting cards or as a hanging decoration.
You’ll Need:
- 4 x cupcake liners, preferably in white
- 1 x pom-pom, approximately half the size of the cupcake liner base
- 1 x silver pipe cleaner
- Glue & glitter
- Card or paper as backing
How To:
- Fold 1 cupcake liner in half and gently flatten it to create the angel’s robe.
- Fold 1 cupcake liner in quarters. Glue to the middle of the robe as the angel’s body.
- Crinkle the last 2 liners to make wings and glue to the back of the angel’s body.
- Create a halo from the silver pipe cleaner and glue to the angel’s pom-pom head.
- Glue your angel’s head to the top of the body.
- Using fine lines of glue, decorate your angel and sprinkle glitter.
- Glue your angel to a rectangular piece of cardboard to use as a greeting card, or a star / circle to use as a hanging decoration.
Star Of David Sun-catchers For Celebrating Hanukkah
Delight your preschooler by hanging these in your windows. They’ll love to watch as the sunrays light them up and make them glow to celebrate the ‘Festival of Lights’.
You’ll Need:
- 6 x Popsicle sticks per star
- Glue
- Paint
- Cellophane
- String for hanging
- Note: for traditional Hanukkah colors, use silver, white and blue
How To:
- Paint the Popsicle sticks with white paint and decorate with silver glitter.
- Glue three sticks together to form a triangle. Repeat with the other Popsicle sticks.
- Glue one triangle onto the other. Make sure that the triangle points face away from each other.
- Glue cellophane to the back of the star and trim.
- Glue two ends of the string to the back of one of the points and hang up in a window.
Kwanzaa Candle Secrets
These pretend Kwanzaa candles hold a secret stash of goodies and can be used as party favors, place holders at the table or beautiful decorations for Kwanzaa celebrations. They are quite safe as they don’t actually burn.
You’ll Need:
- Paper towel tubes (1 tube will make 2 candles)
- Scissors
- Blue
- Construction paper: black, red, and green
- Tissue Paper: orange or yellow
- Ruler
- Wrapped candy
- Nuts in the shell
- Small prizes
How To:
- Cut each tube in half.
- Glue strips of black, green, or red construction paper around each tube.
- Cut the tissue paper into squares of 10 inches x 10 inches.
- Place some nuts, candy and a small prize in the middle of the square.
- Gather the ‘fiery’ tissue paper up around the treats and push the wrapped treats into the tube so that the tissue paper sticks out like a flame.
- You can write each person’s name on their candle as party favors or use the candles as name cards for place settings at the table.
The Best Preschool In Coconut Creek
From all of us here at Providence Children’s Academy, we wish you many happy holiday hours of creating and exploring different cultures with your family, whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, or all three.