A HUGE List Of Affordable Easy Christmas Activities For Preschoolers & Toddlers

Hi Friends! Today I’m sharing a few Christmas/ winter themed activities that are both easy and affordable for you to try during this season. Coming up with ideas on how to keep your little one engaged and occupied while still learning can be tough and I wanted to lend a helping hand in sharing some of my favorite preschool style activities that are perfect for kids ages 1-5! I’ve done a few of these activities during my time teaching and nannying and the kids always find it so fun and entertaining! I’m a fan of low prep and budget friendly when it comes to learning activities. Kids really don’t need that much to learn something new and this list is full of Christmas activity inspiration for you this winter while we’re spending most of our days indoors. Enjoy!

Ice Painting: All you’ll need is a plastic bin filled with ice. Drop a few globs of paint on the ice and give your child a paintbrush and have them paint away! If the paint happens to freeze, pour a little bit of warm water over the ice to help break up the paint.

Snow Man Shakers: Create homemade shakers with covering a bottle with white paper then draw/ color a snowman on it. Fill with beans and cover with the lid. I usually like to add a strip of packing tape around the lid to keep the beans secure in the bottle. Just like that you‘ll have a fun sensory shaker your child can use all season long!

Sprinkles Letter Practice: Use festive sprinkles to cover the surface of a plate of your choice. Your child can then trace alphabet letters in the sprinkles over and over again. Such a fun, hands on way to switch up learning letters!

M&M Christmas Tree Counting: Christmas M&M’s can be used for decorating paper Christmas trees! Write different numbers in the center of each paper tree and have your child use the M&M’s as counters to match the correct number. They can glue them onto the tree like ornaments or just snack on them afterward! Example from Pinterest pictured below.

White Playdoh Snowman Building: Do you want to build a snowman? Your child definitely will with just a few simple materials. Use white Playdoh for your snowman and add pretzel sticks and raisins for them to give their friend arms and eyes! Sour Belt Candy makes great snowman scarfs and you can even help your child make a cute paper hat so your snowman stays warm. If you have an older kiddo regular Playdoh is fine but for the younger ones I recommend making up a batch of edible dough- I swear by my favorite two ingredient recipe: mix equal parts of whipped vanilla frosting and powdered sugar to make the perfect batch of Playdoh that smells so sweet!

Whipped Cream “Snow” Play: Lay down aluminum foil and put whipped cream all over. It looks just like snow and kids LOVE getting there hands in there and playing in it. You could add edible glitter, winter animal figurines or even your child’s favorite characters to make a snowy pretend play setup. The aluminum foil makes clean up so easy!

Hot Cocoa Sensory Bin: You can use brown Pom poms or powdered cocoa as your bin base add in real marshmallows and plastic cups with a spoon. Your kids can explore and pretend to make and sell hot cocoa!

Homemade Christmas Cards: During this time a family member would be delighted to receive a hand drawn Christmas card from your child in the mail! You could even write a small poem on the inside to make it more special in addition to your child’s drawing. Make it into a special event by making the cards and sending them off in a festive envelope at the post office.

Pop Tart Candy House: I recently saw this idea online and loved this spin on the traditional gingerbread house. First off, pop tarts are a favorite with kids and all you need to do is cut two pop tarts in the shape of a house and leave the other two two sides normal size. Use melted frosting to assemble the pieces together and then add your roof! Decorate the outside with Candy of your choice! I read this blog for detailed instructions, hers turned out so cute!

Freeze Dance: Such a fun game and is perfect to get out those winter time wiggles! Put on some Christmas music and challenge your kiddos to stay frozen once it stops! I’ve played this before with holiday tunes or the Frozen Movie music.

Q Tip Snowflakes: Arrange Q- Tips with a little bit of glue to make beautiful snowflakes! For a little extra christmas magic, add glitter to the outside!

Winter Word Wall: Think of some winter words and write them down together! Tape them up to a wall or your refrigerator and recite them during meal times. You can also make a special snowflake wand (just make a paper snowflake and tape it on a wooden or plastic spoon) and have your child point to each word as they say it. A really easy and fun way to build vocabulary!