6 Ideas for Festive Children’s Art and Crafts

With Christmas only a few short weeks away, there’s no better way to get into the festive spirit than with some seasonal art and craft activities for children to enjoy. All you need are some educational resources and a big imagination to get stuck in with these 6 ideas for festive craft activities.

6 Ideas for Festive Children’s Art and Crafts

Salt Dough Christmas Ornaments
Salt dough is a versatile modelling material, and this easy to make dough is perfect for a suitably festive activity like making Christmas tree ornaments. All you need is some salt dough, cookie cutters, some paint, and your imagination.

Once you have rolled out your salt dough, use the cookie cutters to cut out various plastic shapes. You can use a straw to make a hole in the dough so that you can hang it later, before drying out the pieces in the oven. After the salt dough pieces have completely cooled, you can use paint and glitter to decorate them.

Gingerbread Man Decorating
Whether you choose to use an actual gingerbread house, gingerbread men or construction paper cutouts, this fun Christmas craft offers a great messy play opportunity for children. There is no right or wrong way to decorate a gingerbread house or man and the fun is in the process rather than the end result.

To set up your own gingerbread man decorating station, place a range of supplies out on the table and encourage children to let their imaginations run wild! If you are using construction paper and inedible decorations, make sure that they are suitable for the age of the children, and won’t pose a choking hazard.

Festive Paper Chain
Once the festive season sets in, you’ll no doubt have plenty of scraps of wrapping paper lying around that is ideal for making a festive paper chain. Not only is this a great way to make the most of leftover wrapping paper but it’s simple enough for young children to have a go at too (provided that you’ve cut the strips up for them).

After you’ve cut up all of your pieces of paper to roughly the same length and width, all that’s left is to get sticking!

Pipe Cleaner Christmas Tree
Making pipe cleaner Christmas trees is a straightforward craft activity with no clean-up, so you are likely to love this activity as much as the kids will. There are a number of different tutorials you can find on making pipe cleaner Christmas trees that are suitable for different age ranges. The one thing that they all have in common is that aside from green pipe cleaners, you only need one or two supplies to get started.

Paper Snowflakes
As this activity involves using scissors, it’s best to do it with children who are old enough to responsibly use scissors while supervised. It’s always a popular activity during the festive season because it allows children (and adults too!) to be incredibly creative, and all you need is some plain paper and scissors to get stuck in. To add some extra festive sparkle to the snowflakes, why not decorate them with glitter glue once you have cut them out?

Cotton Ball Snowman
This activity is perfect for young learners as it allows them to develop their fine motor skills while being simple enough for young children to get stuck in with and enjoy. The best thing about making cotton ball snowmen is that you can really let your imagination go wild with how you decide to do it, and all you need are craft supplies that you are like to already have in the house.

You can either make a 3D snowman by glueing cotton balls together to make a snowman statue, or by tracing out the rough outline on a piece of paper before glueing the cotton balls on and decorating.

Disclosure – this is a collaborative post