A while ago I worked as child carer in my own home. Leading up to Christmas, I wanted to do some Christmas activities with the kids, as you do!
I was also on a budget but I found this activity worked really well – it cost nothing as I had stuff lying around, the kids were amused for hours and got creative (and developed fine motor skills of course), and by their nature, parents had somewhere to display their work (there are only so many paintings that fit on a fridge!)
Cardboard Christmas Tree decorations
As I was working with two year olds, I did a lot of the preparation work and divide the instructions for an adult and kids. If you have older kids, they may be able to do some of the earlier steps as well.
instructions for the adult
Cut out Christmas shapes from cardboard (cereal boxes work but washing powder boxes are thicker cardboard so are better). Stars, stockings and bells are easy, but get as creative as you want!
Punch a hole near one edge (poke the hole with scissors if you don’t have a hole punch).
instructions for the kids
Decorate the shapes! Glue on bits of coloured paper, tinsel and cotton wool balls, add stickers, glitter and paints.
Let it dry.
Thread gift ribbon (or string) through the hole and tie into a loop.
Hang the loop on the Christmas tree (or a door handle).
Stand back and admire your beautiful work 🙂
Love Santa says – send us photos of your creations, too!
Thanks for sharing that idea, DC. It is simple but effective (I’ve done similar ones with my kids 🙂 )
Making Christmas decorations with a child is a great experience and beautiful tradition. My kids enjoy drawing Christmas cards and preparing small decorations for our Christmas Tree. We do it every year.
They enjoy it and it is so much fun to watch them 🙂
My nephew would have a ball doing this. He is in the, “That’s mine!” stage, so having him actually make something of his own is a plus. Thanks for the idea!
I like your thinking, mcacmf – give him something of his own so ‘that’s mine’ can be agreed with occasionally!
We made a variant of this last week, actually. I cut out quite a few cardboard Christmas bells and let my two and four year olds decorate them. I tied them along a ribbon and hung them (like a paper chain in a way) across a window instead of on the tree.
We make a different ornament every year. We’ve made simple shapes out of paper and clay. We cut out and sewed little Christmas stocking. I think my favorite are the ones we did using plastic canvas and yarn. We found a bunch of pattern booklets at a thrift store to make these.
Different ornaments each year sounds fun and very creative, Jaimie. Plastic canvas and yarn ones sound interesting – good find at the thrift store there!