Preschool Christmas Crafts
From LoveToKnow Crafts
Don't pull your hair out trying to find elaborate preschool Christmas crafts for your young ones to create this holiday season. For children this age, simple really is better.
Choosing a Christmas Craft for a Preschooler
Christmas crafts are a large part of the holiday season, whether they are created at school, church or at home. Many are keepsakes and are wonderful additions to any Christmas decor. Before you choose what types of crafts you want your preschooler to create, make sure you set not only a budget for supplies, but also a specific area in which you want to do these crafts. Make sure the projects you do are age appropriate and not too overwhelming for 3- to 5-year-olds.
If you don't want to spend a fortune on these crafts, take a look around your house or classroom to see if you have any items that could be used. Typical items needed to create fun and easy preschool Christmas crafts include:
- Markers
- Watercolor paints
- Glitter
- Glue
- Colored pencils
- Crayons
- Scissors
- Poster board
- Construction paper
- Sponges (can be cut into holiday shapes)
- Foam paper
- Holiday stickers
- Colorful ribbon
- Decorative hole punch
- Pipe cleaners
- Craft sticks
- Cardboard tubes (from paper towels or toilet paper)
It's best to collect these items ahead of time and save them in a special tote designated for Christmas crafts. This way, your preschooler will know what items can be used and will have a safe place to put everything away when he or she is done.
Religious Christmas Crafts
There are many types of religious holiday crafts suitable for preschoolers. For younger children, there are several kinds of printables available. Bible Kids Fun Zone has coloring pages that tell the story of nativity. Colorful pages can be printed and made into a simple book (punch holes and tie with ribbon or yarn), or black and white pages can be printed for the youngsters to color. Kids this age don't have the patience or the skills to really create a detailed Christmas craft.
Older preschoolers have a large variety crafts they can create for Christmas. At Apples 4 the Teacher, you can choose from Christmas Faith Necklace, Shining Nativity Star Ornament or a Foam Nativity Photo Frame. Children at this age have more patience and fine motor skill development to create more complicated projects.
Traditional Christmas Crafts
Most children love to make Santa Claus and reindeer crafts for Christmas. A great project to undertake with your preschooler is a Paper Bag Reindeer Puppet, which can be completed in four simple steps. Another holiday craft you can make out of a paper bag is a Paper Stocking. What great ways to recycle old shopping bags!
For a list of five simple preschool crafts, check out Preschool Rock. Choose from Holiday Magnets and Wrapping Paper Bud Vases, among others. Preschool Education has a list of holiday crafts submitted readers and includes Christmas Puppets, Candy Cane Reindeer and a Christmas Card Holder.
Designing Your Own Preschool Christmas Crafts
Children at this age are really easy to please. They love to color, paint, cut, glue and use a lot of glitter -- in other words, they like to make a mess! If your preschooler isn't ready to sit and follow specific instructions to create a holiday craft, then let them do their own thing. Let them paint paper plates with holiday-colored glitter paint and put their hand print in the middle. Attach some string and you have a cute wall decoration.
You can also purchase the large packs of foam Christmas trees, stockings or snowflakes from a local craft store and let the kids decorate them with colorful stickers. No mess, and you get a great holiday project. A fun way to reuse a paper bag is to take Christmas cookie cutters and trace the designs on to both sides of a grocery bag (specifically one with a handle). The preschoolers can color in the Christmas shapes and use the bag for gifts or even to take home all of their holiday papers and crafts that were done in the classroom.
Let your preschooler lead the way. If he or she is interested in creating a structured project, then go ahead and do it. Otherwise, let the children have free time to do any type of craft may be best suited for that time.
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