New Year’s Activities for Kids

My daughter is 14 and she’s never stayed up until midnight on New Year’s Eve. She finds it boring (and as a lover of sleep I can’t say I blame her!). But there are plenty of ways you can mark the new year with kids even if you don’t want to stay up all night. Check out these fun new year’s activities for kids.

Print and color party hats with these free printables from The Pragmatic Parent.

Rock Your Homeschool has five cute printable color by number coloring pages for New Year’s Eve, including fireworks, a clock, party hat, balloons and a ball to drop.

The printable playdough mats from A Little Pinch of Perfect let kids make a clock, decorate a party hat, color the fireworks and make a colorful ball to drop.

Play New Year’s bingo with printable cards from Mom Envy. Her set has 40 different cards so it’s perfect to do with a group or in a classroom if you’re in school this time of year (or as a fun activity for the first day after break).

Make some simple New Year’s Eve slime with confetti in it with this recipe from Little Bins for Little Hands. They also have a printable pack (free with email address) that includes bingo cards, a word search, sudoku, a printable for your word of the year and more.

You can make your own party crackers and fill them with confetti and treats with the printable template from Messy Little Monster. From the photos it looks like some of them have an old date but I’m not sure if they’ve been updated. You can always just use the ones that say Happy New Year without a year.

Help kids look back and ahead with a year in review printable. This one from Skip to My Lou has a space for a self portrait as well as writing some favorites for the year and things they want to learn, see and improve on in the new year.

Next Plan Idea:

Celebrating Coloring Book Day with Printable Coloring Pages

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

Next Plan Idea:

Have you read?

Leave a Reply