Fun advent activities for kids 2012

We find that counting down to Christmas is so much fun and we get to do lots of craft and it’s also a time that I gather keepsakes as I include handprint and/or footprint-related crafts:

Because I hardly blogged in the last 1.5 years, I relied on my Facebook page to update some of the activities we did. This year, since I have revived my blog some 3 months ago, I decided to share with you the activities I have planned for Christmas 2012.

Here’s my list of fun advent activities for kids for 2012! (and I’ll be jotting these ideas down on the little numbers on the clothes pin wreath advent calendar I made):

1. Decorate a small Christmas tree (I got my miniature tree and a set of baubles for $2 each at Daiso!)

2. Make Christmas stockings (our Christmas stockings last year)

3. Make a paper angel garland

4. Bake gingerbread men cookies (we’re using a pre-mix which comes with a cookie cutter and decoration items)

5. Read The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg and prepare the relevant activity sheets from Living Life Intentionally’s downloadable activity pack (this pack contains a whole range of activities for children ages 2-7 to do, so you print only what you need – what a wonderful resource!)

6. Make a handprint Christmas tree

7. Popsicle stick Christmas tree embellishment (here’s a toilet-roll Christmas tree embellishment we made last year, and the best part is you can’t really tell it’s made with a toilet roll!)

8. Glittery snowflake craft (requires only contact paper and glitter! You have to cut out the snowflake of course. View snowflake tutorial here.) We made paper snowflake cut-outs last year too.

9. Make Q-tip snowflakes

10. Take a night time walk to see the Christmas lights

11. Make a paper plate angel

12. Make Christmas gift tags (the polka-dot one made with Q-tips so that even little hands can take part). We made simple gift tags from little craft punchers and glitter glue last year.

13. Tissue paper Christmas wreath

14. Make Christmas cards

15. Christmas tree photoframe

16. Gift bow painting

17. Handprint turkey (scroll down to find the pictures of the handprint turkey)

18. Paper plate pop-up Christmas tree

19. Make Peppermint Playdough

20. Follow-up activity from previous day: Make peppermint playdough snowmen

21. Make potato-stamped wrapping paper

22. Go for a Christmas picnic/ gathering

23. Snowflake gross motor learning (using the free printables from Playing with words 365, you can decide what you’d like to teach) – I opted to print the empty snowflakes for reinforcing sight words 🙂

24. Handprint and footprint reindeer

25. Read a book about the origins of Christmas (We’re reading The First Christmas, a book my aunt bought which comes with cardboard characters to enact the nativity).