Christmas Sensory Activities for Kids

Christmas time is a great time for sensory activities for kids. They’re likely to be home from school more than usual, and I always found sensory things a great way to fill some time so I could get a little work done. Plus, in the Northern Hemisphere the weather might be kind of lousy, so it gives you something to do when you can’t go outside.

Here are a few great Christmas/holiday themed sensory activities for kids to try.

One of the easiest sensory things you can do for Christmas and throughout the winter season is to make fake snow. This recipe from The Purposeful Nest uses only two ingredients and I would totally play with it myself. Add a little peppermint oil to make it extra seasonal.

Another easy way to make a sensory bin more seasonal is to dye your base materials red and green. You can do this with pasta, as shown in this bin from Teaching Mama, or with rice, like this one from The Imagination Tree. This is so easy to do and gives it a little more festive flair.

Another sensory activity my daughter loved was cloud dough. This is also really easy to pull together, and you can make a gingerbread-spiced version that’s even taste safe with this recipe from Sugar Spice and Glitter.

Of course there are so many things you can do with and ways you can make playdough for the holidays, too. Take your favorite recipe and add coloring and spice, or try one of these recipes to make playdough in all sorts of ways:

peppermint (Childhood 101)
gingerbread (Natural Beach Living)
chocolate (Fantastic Fun and Learning)
Grinch playdough (Messy Little Monster)
snowman playdough (Mommy Musings)

Peppermint shaving cream is another one that kids would love to play with (and hopefully not try to eat!). Get the simple recipe from Learn Play Imagine.

And since we’ve covered all the classics, we couldn’t finish up without some slime! Why not make it Grinch slime like this one from Little Bins for Little Hands? I love the addition of the little hearts!

Are you looking for the best sensory toys and activities for your child? Explore our comprehensive resources to enhance your child’s sensory play and development. Check out our curated Amazon Idea List featuring top-rated sensory toys and items, and don’t miss our expertly written articles on sensory activities. Start creating fun and educational sensory experiences today!

Several countries have a day set aside to honor and recognize their inventors, but Nov. 9 is a special one that’s known as Tag der Erfinder in German. It’s celebrated in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and it falls on Nov. 9 because that’s the birthday of Hedy Lamarr.

Hedy Lamarr is widely known as an actress but there’s a lot more to her story. You can get a little of it geared to little kids in the Little People, Big Dreams book Hedy Lamarr (32 pages, hardcover, published 2023 by Frances Lincoln Childrens Books, suggested retail price $15.99).

The book explores her birth in Austria and how she spent time when she was young coming up with inventions. She became an actress, married an arms dealer, made her escape to America and became an actress again.

But she also helped develop a frequency-hopping signal device for airplanes that was used by the Americans and their allies during World War II. That technology became the basis for wireless technology such as wifi and GPS.

While Inventor’s Day is a great time to learn about Hedy Lamarr, you can take this opportunity to check out books and do little studies on lots of different inventors. If there’s an inventor or an invention your child is particularly interested in, that’s a great place to start. It’s fun to think about all the things we use every day that didn’t always exist; someone had to invent them!

For a start here at Craft Gossip you can learn more about Garrett Morgan, who invented traffic lights; Maria Oroso, who developed a clay oven that could cook food without electricity; and more female inventors and scientists.

And for more general inventors’ fun, check out this inventors word search from Fun Findery (and another from Let’s Do Puzzles) or take a quiz on inventors and their inventions from Flanders Family Home Life.

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