Christmas Activities for Kids at Home

Christmas brings in a lot of joy and cheer. But it does bring about some boredom for children as they are at home often looking for what they could do. Parents are always looking for how they could engage their child.

Here are a few activities that your kids will enjoy at home :

Making Christmas Snow Sensory Bin

Many kids are fascinated by snow as they haven’t seen or felt it in person. This can be an amazing sensory activity for your children.

All you need is 1 cup baking soda, ½ cup sugar,1/2 cup corn starch, 1tbsp cream of tartar, 4 tbsp of water, a medium bowl and a whisk. Mix all the dry ingredients well and then add 2 tbsp of water first, mix it, then again add another 2tbsp, mix, and you will get the desired fluffy texture like snow. Optional, you can put this in a zip lock bag and refrigerate it to make it cold. This is a taste safe recipe and can last up to a year when stored properly.

You can add small manipulatives like Christmas decorations or cars in the bin for your child to engage longer.

Making a snowman face on the zip-lock bag

This is an excellent fine motor activity for strengthening little fingers as they match up the snowman face. All you would need is a zip lock bag, permanent markers, hair gel or sanitizer gel, water, black buttons, orange felt, and a tape to seal the bag.

Begin by drawing a snowman face with the permanent marker on the outside of the bag. Then add the clear hair gel/ sanitizer gel and 4 tbsp of water. Then add 2 black buttons for the eyes and 10 red buttons for the mouth. Cut the orange felt of the same size as you have drawn on the bag for the snowman’s nose. Remove as much air as possible from the bag and seal it tightly. You can tape it for additional safety.

Now let your child move the buttons and the felt using his fingers to match the snowman’s face.

Christmas Pompom and Tweezer Activity

This is a great fine motor activity that also helps with developing pencil grasp that aids in holding the writing tool correctly. You can mix red, green and white pompoms , take a tweezer and have the child sort these into 3 different red, white and green colour cups.

Christmas Tree Collage

Have the child cut small pieces of paper into small bits and stick it inside the outline of the Christmas tree. Using child safe scissors helps to develop muscles of the forearm, wrist and fingers. It also helps a great deal with developing and strengthening thumb opposition which is of utmost importance to hold a pencil.

Christmas Word Search Puzzle

Write all the words related to Christmas in a grid format and challenge your child’s visual perceptual and visual tracking skills by letting them search the words horizontally, vertically and diagonally. You can keep the words short or long depending on your child’s age.

Target Games

All you need is plenty of green disposable cups and a ball. Let your child arrange them on each other in the shape of a Christmas Tree. And then let the fun begin!!

You can even have a few friends over and they can hit the cups with the ball. The one who brings down maximum is the winner!!

Christmas Scavenger Hunt

Hide various festive items around your house and create a list of fun clues for your family to find them. This is a very engaging indoor activity for the entire family.

Aren’t these activities good enough to keep your child engaged and away from hours and hours of screentime?

By Dr. Isha Soni, Senior Occupational Therapist, Internationally Certified Play Therapist and Centre Head, Lexicon Rainbow Therapy and Child Development Centre.