Christmas vacation is upon us! One of my goals for this precious time is to have some fun creating intentional memories with my kids. I have been trying to find some fun activities to do keeping the kids busy and also keeping mommy’s sanity in tact! With all the kids home, the environment can go from just fine to nasty in under 30 seconds, so I wanted to have some activities planned out to derail those moments of nastiness!
Here are some fun projects for you to try this vacation! Most of these are for younger kids. I will be working on a list for older kids in the next day or so. Some of these we have done before and some will be trying for the first time! I hope you will find something that looks like a fun project to try and will let me know how it turns out!
- Make Rainbow Rice and after it’s complete use it to play as a sensory table or for art projects! We made this last night and it used 5 tablespoons of rubbing alcohol to 12 drops of food coloring and BROWN rice.
- Fill a long shallow tote with rice, dry beans, etc and let the kids use it as a sensory table. The boys love to put their tractors and combines in ours and “farm.” We do this every vacation. Rice is easy to vacuum up and they play with it for days! (If you put a plastic table cloth underneath the tote, it’s much easier to roll it up and pour what has spilled onto the table cloth back into the tote!)
- Mix up a batch of Gingerbread Playdoh!
- Make a Gingerbread House, Gingerbread Nativity, Rice Krispy Treat House or Pretzel Cabin together
- Make a game of Balloon Ping Pong! Here’s what you need! Attach a popsicle stick (the fat ones work the best) or a paint stir stick from the paint department to a paper plate. That will be the paddle. Make as many of these as you have children. Blow up a balloon and let them hit it back and forth with their “paddles.” My kids think this is really fun!
- Make New Year’s Poppers! We did this last year and the kids have been begging to make them again for this year!
- If you have daughters, give each other manicures and or pedicures! You can add to the fun by doing their hair “fancy.” My girls love this! My 6-year-old has recently discovered hot rollers and it’s a special treat when I curl her hair “fancy”.
- Get a can of shaving cream, some sprinkles, a few cookie sheets and let the kids make words, letters or pretty pictures on the cookie sheets.
- Have a tea party. Use a real tea set, have mini muffins or cookies and let the kids dress up. My boys even love doing this with their sisters.
- Have a carpet picnic. If you are concerned about mess do something simple like peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, apple slices, and milk. We always eat in the kitchen so this is a big deal for my kids when we lay out a big blanket and either just have the picnic or eat and watch a movie.
Do you have any special projects planned for Christmas vacation? I’d love to hear about them!
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