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Christmas Sensory Activities for Kids

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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 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!

 

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Resources for Learning about Squirrels

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. 

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