Christmas

Holiday Activities

Playing with Blocks for Holiday Fun

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With so much technology, it’s easy to forget simple toys like blocks. Playing with blocks can range from simple to complex and it’s powered by imagination.

playing with Lego blocksImaginations are surrounded with holiday magic. What might Santa’s workshop look like? Kids might like to use their blocks and other construction toys to make their own Toyland or Christmas Village. Rudolph and the other reindeer might need a barn. Santa certainly needs some kind of house at the North Pole.

menorah-lego
Photo source: Menorah from The Crumb Factory blog

As children play, they will come up with their own ideas about what to do. We can suggest something to them and let them make independent play choices. Some kids  may want to make a whole nativity  or menorah using Lego or other toys. (This menorah  is from The Crumb Factory.)

Both bodies and brains are active when children play with blocks. During their play, they are:

    • stacking, balancing, lining up, matching, pulling, pushing, lifting, carrying, and moving in all directions,
    • solving problems, planning, testing, and organizing,
    • exercising and strengthening both large and small muscles and developing coordination,
    • exploring space and spatial orientation and how objects fit and move,
    • seeing with eyes and minds, that is visualizing
    • imagining and creating
    • discovering more about balance and gravity
    • figuring out how much energy is just right so blocks don’t get pushed over or knocked out of place

playing with blocksBlocks and constructions toys come in a variety of materials, such as wood, sponge, and plastic. Cubes and boxes aren’t the only shapes and colors are as varied as the rainbow. Because these toys are so adaptable, kids can play with them for different developmental stages. They appeal to both boys and girls, children and adults too.

Kids will challenge themselves as they play and imagine to make higher towers, longer sections, and bigger structures. What will your child build today when playing with blocks?

Holiday Activities

Playing with Puzzles for Holiday Fun

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Wondering how you are going to fit everything all in for the holidays might be quite a puzzle and playing with puzzles is today’s fun activity. Any puzzles at your house?

playing with puzzlesWe sometimes forget that puzzles are toys. Most puzzles are made of wood, thick paper, or foam rubber and are available with only a very few pieces or many, many more. Definitely hands-on, they engage the senses and the brain. Besides seeing the ins and outs, feeling them  helps to match up a piece to its empty space. The click when a piece snaps into place is quite satisfying.

Puzzles are a super way for kids to develop some thinking skills and strategies. Although they are a sort of construction toy, with puzzles the pieces only fit one way. What varies is how to put it together. Some children will pay closer attention to the shape while others will carefully check out the colors. Kids need to figure out to use both of these and other methods as well. Fiddling with pieces to make them fit also exercises small muscles and challenges eye-hand-brain coordination.

puzzle funAs kids try and retry, they are developing problem-solving and reasoning skills. Although putting a puzzle together can be frustrating, kids are learning to persevere. They are practicing patience and paying attention.

Pieces fit together in a relationship. While kids often do puzzles by themselves, there is also interaction as they ask for help or proudly ask us to come and see it all done.

Did you ever do puzzles as a child? Putting puzzles together used to be a popular activity for family members of all ages. Especially during the holidays. For some, it was a tradition for Santa to leave a Christmas present of a brand new puzzle under the tree. Everyone wanted to be able to put in the last piece. Puzzles can be done over and over, and enjoyed each time. Could playing with puzzles be one of your child’s plays-of-the-day?

Holiday Activities

Draw and Color Holiday Fun

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How about some draw and color holiday fun for kids? Set out some crayons or paints and plenty of paper. There are coloring books for grownups now to relieve stress and tension, so you may want to join kids at the table or on the floor and color too. Sometimes, tables and floors need some extra paper or plastic so they don’t accidentally get colored too.

holiday art fun
photo courtesy of MFair

Holiday time comes with lots of ideas for things to draw and color, some easier for younger kids and some more challenging for older ones. Lines are easier to draw than circles, which take a great deal of muscle control. Toddlers may want to cover a page with lots of different colored lines and scribbles. Use stiff paper, fold it in half and it becomes a card to send in the mail or give to someone special.

holiday art funCandles are fairly easy shapes to draw with two straight lines and some bright colors to be the flame. People are basically lines and circles and they can be doing so many different things, like a little holiday shopping. One person is also talking in this picture. Pictures are another way to represent what’s happening in their world.

Christmas children's artWhen children draw or paint, hands aren’t the only things that are busy. So are brains. Not only do kids need to control the small muscles in their hands, wrists, and arms, they also have to coordinate the picture in their mind with what’s happening on the paper. They concentrate on what they are doing, pay attention to some things like how much pressure to put on the brush or crayon and ignore other things, such as the background sounds of traffic.

Children’s art will not always be something. Kids simply like to create, to try different actions. We can invite kids to talk about what they are doing by saying, “Tell me about this.” By drawing them into a conversation, we give them a chance to express themselves in words as well as pictures. Giving kids the opportunity to play with colors and paper is a way for them to communicate their feelings and thoughts during a busy, eventful time. Could this draw and color holiday fun be your child’s play-of-the-day?

Cooking and Baking

Christmas Cooking with Kids

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Tech support will delete your cookies and so will kids. For a play-of-the-day, tie on an apron for Christmas cooking with kids. At this time of year, many families are making holiday favorites. While some make cookies, others are kneading the dough for cinnamon buns, rolling out pyrogies, decorating Yule logs, wrapping up tamales, cutting … Continue reading Christmas Cooking with Kids →