The weather outside sure is frightful! If you’re planning days at home over the winter school holidays, we’ve pulled together some things to do with the kids to keep them entertained, as well as yourself!
A simple and fun idea is to create Santa's face with a paper plate. Also ideal as a piece of art on display over Christmas (not to everyone's taste we're sure!)
What you'll need: A paper plate, some red card, cotton wool, glitter, and a paint set with the colours, pink, red, white and black, and of course, child-safe scissors and glue. We recommend skipping buying googly eyes as using paint to create the eyes is just as effective, and easier to come by.
Method: After the face has been painted on and dried, and the Santa hat shape cut out, your little ones can get going with sticking on and decorating the rest.
The smell of cinnamon cookies baking is enough to want to create these, and they are easy peasy. This recipe makes between 30 and 40 melt-in-your-mouth cookies.
What you'll need: The regular cookie baking equipment, including some star shaped cookie cutters. Ingredients needed are: 250 grams of self-raising flour, 125 grams of cold butter cubes (cut into 1cm cubes, plus some for greasing), ½ teaspoon of cinnamon, ½ teaspoon of ground ginger, 125 grams of caster sugar and 1 egg (beaten). For the decoration, use icing sugar with a drop of water and edible silver balls.
Method: Heat your oven to 200C/180C fan or gas mark 6 (these cookies bake really quickly so check on them after 5 minutes, they usually take about 10 minutes). Grease two large baking sheets. Add the flour to a large mixing bowl with the cubes of cold butter. Rub these together between your fingers. Add the sugar and spices stirring thoroughly. Then add the pre-beaten egg and stir in. Use your hands to squish all together into a ball and then, after sprinkling some flour on your worktop, roll out the ball of dough. Using your cookie cutter, cut out the biscuits and place them on your baking sheets. Once the biscuits are baked (approx. 10 mins) and cooled right down, decorate with icing and edible silver balls. They keep for about a week in an airtight container, but can't be frozen.
A lovely way to use-up unwanted wrapping paper, and they can look really pretty if hung by a window with the light shining through in the daytime.
What you'll need: Christmas wrapping paper (preferably thicker paper), some child-safe scissors and glue, and string if you would like to hang it up.
Method: Cut a large square out of the wrapping paper, then fold diagonally in half and fold in half again. Now, divide the triangle into three sections by folding equally to create thirds, and then open these out so there's just the indentation in the paper (bit tricky this bit). Then, fold the left section over towards the front, and the right section over towards the front. Are you still with us?! It should look like a paper plane at this point. Then cut along the top section (where the paper meets the other piece, you'll know what we mean) and then cut random shapes along the edges. Unfold to display your beautiful creation.
Again, these are very effective and super easy to make.
What you'll need: Some thick brown card, even cardboard if it's not too thick, a piece of paper, scissors and string.
Method: Firstly, draw the shape of a star onto the paper. Then by using this as a stencil, draw star shapes across the thick brown card/cardboard, and then cut these out. Pierce a small hole at the top of one of the star corners (with enough space around it to support the shape), and thread through some string. Do the same for the rest. Tie the string at the top of each and voila you have pretty, natural-looking Christmas decorations. Decorate these with paint if you would prefer a different look.
Receiving a personally made Christmas card can be even more special for relatives and friends. Once you've created a stencil, these can be made in volume!
What you'll need: A4 white card, a piece of coloured paper for the stencil, child-safe scissors, a gold or/and silver pen, and a red pen.
Method: Create a small snowflake (using the guide above) out of the coloured paper to use as a stencil. Take a piece of white card and fold in half. Then place the stencil in the centre of the folded side of the card (make sure it's the one that opens to the right). Colour in the gaps of the snowflake with a silver or gold pen, and use a red pen and silver/gold pen to add little speckles around the snowflake shape.
Happy crafting everyone!
Photo credits: Markus Spiske, Lydia Matzal, Micheile and Pure Julia.
"Our 5 year old can be shy and unwilling to try new things but we were delighted with how he skipped in to camp every day."
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