Christmas Gifts Kids Can Make

Every year my daughter’s school does a holiday market where the kids (I think it’s either first or second grade that does it) make the things they sell and the proceeds go toward holiday gifts and food for those in need.

The projects are always a little different each year but there are a few standards, and I think that event is a great reminder that kids can make cute holiday gifts with a little help from adults. So let’s look at some ideas for Christmas gifts kids can make.

One classic they always make, which I talked about in the National Sock Day post, is sock snowmen. These are so easy to make and super cute and we have a couple of them from the year my daughter made them that still come out every year.

They also often do birdseed ornaments, like these from Take Them Outside. Theses are easy to make using cookie cutters to make different shapes. This version is made with gelatin, which seems to be super common, but you could also try the classic peanut butter and birdseed mix if you’re not dealing with nut allergies.

Another easy make you can do with cookie cutters or silicone molds of different shapes is bath bombs. Red Ted Art has a good recipe that doesn’t use citric acid, which is nice because you probably can’t buy citric acid at your local grocery store. If you do have access to citric acid, a recipe like this one from A Beautiful Mess should work for you.

I’m sure I’ve shared melty bead bowls before, and this is one that probably isn’t great for a classroom because you need an oven, but the result is so cool and if you’re making gifts at home it’s no problem. And who doesn’t have too many Perler beads! Get the instructions for this one from Meaningful Mama.

Another classic craft that requires an oven (though I think you could do this in a toaster oven) is Shrinky Dinks. Learn how to turn kids’ drawings into keychains with this idea from Messy Little Monster.

There are so many fun bookmarks that kids can make, but I love these watercolor look bookmarks from Happy Hooligans. They’re a fun upcycling project and give kids a chance to be artistic and a little surprised if they’ve never worked with Sharpies and rubbing alcohol before.

Another one I remember them doing at school is hot chocolate spoons, which you can find a tutorial for at In the Kitch. They’re so cute and you can make them with different toppings to make a whole array of fun hot chocolate options.

Check out the kids craft section on Craftbits.com

And of course there’s air dry clay crafts, and everyone loves handprint and fingerprint crafts, too.

Do you have a go-to Christmas gift for kids to make? I’d love to hear about it!

Did you know that October is Squirrel Awareness Month? I didn’t know we needed more awareness of these little creatures, but let’s take it as a sign to learn more about squirrels!

Let’s start with some fun facts via Kids Konnect: did you know there are five subfamilies and more that 280 species of squirrels? The smallest are pygmy squirrels and the largest, the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, can be longer that 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Tree squirrels can climb down trees so fast because their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to grab the tree bark as they go down. While most squirrels don’t survive their first year of life, they can live five to 10 years in the wild and squirrels have been known to live up to 20 years in captivity!

Rhythms of Play has more fun facts and tips for observing squirrels if you want to add some real life nature to your nature study.

We always like to start these collections with life cycle and parts of the animal printables, so let’s grab the squirrel life cycle an parts of a squirrel worksheets from Montessori Nature. (It doesn’t look like these are free any more but they have a whole unit study on squirrels you can buy that includes life cycle and parts activities, characteristics of different kinds of squirrels, a printable poster, information about predators and more.)

Grab the squirrel lapbook printable (free with email address) from Homeschool Share to learn the parts of a squirrel, where they live, what they eat, whether they hibernate and more. There’s also a nut taste test printable, a place for making observations about squirrels, life cycle of an oak tree, games and more.

Simple Everyday Mom has some cute squirrel themed worksheets including tracing the letter s, labeling the parts of a squirrel and a letter s maze. She also has more activity pages with a squirrel theme, including matching, a more traditional maze and a counting and graphing activity.

Work on letter recognition with this squirrel and acorn game printable from Teaching Mama. I love the idea of hiding the letters in a fall themed sensory bin for kids to find, identify and match to the letter on the worksheet.

For older kids you can do this “if I were a squirrel” writing prompt from Lesson Planet.

And throw in a little counting with these squirrel and acorn tens frame printables from JDaniel4’s Mom, which you can use to count real acorns or any other little fall themed thing you have handy.

Have you read?

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