Winter Solstice Activities and Crafts for Kids

The winter solstice happens on Dec. 21 (as I write this in 2025, anyway) in the Northern Hemisphere, and it’s sort of the real beginning of the holiday season. It marks the beginning of the coldest season, but it’s also the shortest day, with the least amount of sunlight all year. So the solstice is a time of celebration of the returning of the light.

If your family celebrates the solstice or Yule, you may already have some favorite traditions and decorations you use, but whether you’re new to celebrating or not, I hope you’ll find some fun ideas here.

Go for a nature walk (yes, even if it’s cold!) and gather materials to make your own solstice wreath. These are great to hang on the door or have on the table for Christmas or other holiday celebrations. Learn how to do it with this tutorial from Kid Minds. While you’re outside you can do the winter scavenger hunt that is one of the ideas for celebrating solstice with kids from Backwoods Mama. I also love the wet-felted lantern on that page.

Speaking of lanterns, since winter solstice is about the returning of the light and it’s the longest night, making your own lanterns or luminaries is a great activity. I love these simple but pretty paper luminaries from Art Bar; you could try doing this with paper towel tubes, too.

Or make an ice lantern with this tutorial from Little Cooks Reading Books. The post has lots of ideas for things to add to your water before you freeze it, but plain ice is pretty, too (and then you can paint the ice with watercolors!).

There’s also these pretty snowy tree lanterns from Wineberry Wood Press, which are fun for kids and adults to make together. They also have a fun solstice countdown calendar you can make to count the days until your solstice celebration.

The winter solstice is a great time to acknowledge nature and put some food out for the local animals. Run Wild My Child does the classic pinecone seed feeder and dried orange slices, which you can also use as decor inside since they look like the sun.

Do you have any traditions or crafts you like to do for the winter solstice? I’d love to hear about it!

Celebrating the Winter Solstice with Kids [Lesson Plans]

Happy Winter Solstice! [Polymer Clay]

I did a post earlier this year with activities and ideas for teaching the alphabet, but a lot or learning letters and recognizing them just has to do with seeing them and working with them a lot.

That means coloring, tracing, identifying things that start with different letters and more.

One way to reinforce the letters is through little activity books like these cute printable alphabet books from Life Over Cs.

These are available for free when you subscribe to her newsletter, and I’d say that’s well worth it if you have a little one (or a group of little ones!) working on the alphabet and letter recognition.

Each mini book includes a collection of things that start with that letter to color, color and read with words that start with the letter, tracing the letter, finding the letter in a grid and other coloring pages with objects that start with that letter.

These little books are super useful reinforcing the different letters and giving kids different activities related to the letters.

If you do a letter of the day or letter of the week you can use a new book for each one, and then keep the copies in your reading center or in a basket where kids can look at them again.

And of course you can add in all the other letter activities you like, go on a scavenger hunt for items that start with that letter, read alphabet books, practice writing letters in rice or with pompoms or playdough or whatever sensory activities you like.

You can grab the free printables when you enter you email address at Life Over Cs, and check out her other great alphabet resources and activities while you are over there.

Do you have favorite activities for teaching letters to kids? I’d love to hear about them!

[Photo: Life Over Cs]

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