The beginning of the Winter season has been pretty exciting in Oregon! With a whole week of snow days it is extra busy trying to fit in all our wonderful holiday crafts, projects, and centers! I haven't posted in awhile due to snow days and Winter colds...but I am excited to share a few last minute holiday/Winter ideas that the preschoolers in your life will LOVE!
Enjoy and Happy Holidays!
Enjoy and Happy Holidays!
1. Play Dough Snowmen
This may be the cutest winter activity...ever. It is re-usable all season long, and if you save the supplies it can be reused year after year.
To Make:
Create some "snow" play-dough. I used my favorite recipe and added Mint extract before cooking and then mixed in some sparkles once it was done and cool.
For the accessories I used:
-old orange crayons for carrot noses
-beans for eyes and mouth
-old scrap fabric for scarves
-old cardboard to cut out and glue together top hats (I just colored the box with a sharpie marker)
-misc buttons, both black and colorful ones
-old orange crayons for carrot noses
-beans for eyes and mouth
-old scrap fabric for scarves
-old cardboard to cut out and glue together top hats (I just colored the box with a sharpie marker)
-misc buttons, both black and colorful ones
Cute, cute, cute!
2. DIY Gingerbread House!
I wanted a gingerbread house decorating center out that kids couldn't actually eat, that wouldn't break easily, and that could be re-used all week long. This is what I came up with, and I couldn't have been more pleased!
To Make:
I found this house and box at Target on sale. I thought it would be perfect for the base of the gingerbread house...and then all the decorations could go inside the box! Any kind of box or cardboard creation could work! As you can see I stuck on a sheet of "sticker" sparkle foam to the rooftop to make it look like snow!
I added four rows of velcro stick on circles to the roof-top so that we could decorate it with "candy". The stickers didn't do well with the sparkle foam so I had to use hot glue. But they stuck to the wood just fine!
I glued two large cinnamon sticks to the front of the house, and then added sticker velcro circles for candy decorations, two windows, a door, and two candy-canes!
I bought sparkle poms for candy, as well as some foam marshmallows that I found at my local craft store. I made the candy canes and mint candy from felt and just hand sewed them together :) The door is reversible...dark brown with a light brown doorknob on one side, and light brown with a dark brown doorknob on the other side. A great chance to talk about opposites!
I have noticed the kids using this activity to reinforce pattern building A LOT! They also noticed the opposite colors on the door right off, and commented on it. It is also fun and creative for them. They have brought little people over to play inside the house as well.
3. Holiday Cookie Station!
We have a play-dough cookie center out each year around the holidays, and it is always super popular. It is also one of the easiest centers to set up because most teachers have the supplies around the school! This year I had a lot of fun creating the play-dough for the kids to use!
To Make:
The white mint & sparkle play-dough ended up in the snowman center discussed above, but the other three live in the cookie center! I used my favorite play-dough recipe and then added cocoa powder and brown food coloring to make a chocolate dough, I added red coloring along with cinnamon and nutmeg to the red play-dough, and then I added almond extract and green coloring to the last dough. These smell AMAZING! The kids have really enjoyed making cookies...and we spent a lot of time discussing whether or not we should actually eat them ;) Luckily my kiddos are great at listening to our rules, and the recipe is safe to eat just in case!
I set out a variety of cookie cutters, my set of child sized rolling pins (I love the melissa and doug set), as well as some "sprinkles" and cupcake sticks with holiday pictures.
I had a bunch of old mini play-dough containers and with some new paper covers they make great sprinkle containers. I just glued on an example of the type of beads I filled it with, so the kids could also work on their sorting skills :) I had a little girl who really wanted to help me sort out our sprinkles to set this up, too!