Thanksgiving and Christmas crafts were easier when all four kids were young. Just trace hands, throw some felt pom poms around, and call it a day.
Now that only the youngest is “little,” they’re harder to please (as a group). And taller. With more capable hands.
With upcoming school breaks, I need Thanksgiving and Christmas crafts that are fun for a wider age range of kids. Ones that keep the older two (ages seven and nine) engaged, but aren’t difficult enough to exclude the younger two (ages two and five).
Per usual, I’ve turned my search for those activities into an article.
Tips to Make The Age Gap Work
These activities aren’t about perfection; they’re about engagement.
It’s hard enough to please anyone, let alone everyone. These activities will get everyone seated and busy for a time, but the younger ones may tear up their attempts before the older ones have finished.
Here are some tips for wrangling them as a group.
Pick A Theme, Any Theme
Don’t panic if you can’t find an activity that fits perfectly for every age. Use a theme to bring them all together.
If the older kids are making some complicated snowmen, have the younger ones decorate “snow” (shaving cream) in a tote with food coloring. Or give each child a pinecone. The older kids can make intricate bird feeders. The younger ones will love simply covering their pinecones with glitter.
Don’t Juggle, Toggle
We’re not juggling different age groups during these seasonal activities. We’re toggling them. It’s a mindset thing.
“Juggling” age groups smacks of anxiety and summons visions of plates spinning in the air. “Toggling” means to switch between states. In this context specifically, it’s switching between more hands-on and encouraging behavior for younger crafters, to more indirect and empowering with older ones.
Create an Assembly Line
If everyone is working on the same craft, try lining them up and assigning jobs. It’s kinda like parallel play, and will help the littler ones keep their eyes on their own project.
Assembly line-ing the paper corn craft might look like: one kid can gather the kernels, pass them to the kid who bags them, have them all take turns shaking, and finish with the bigger ones gluing and arranging.
Easily Step It Up or Down
Is there a way to make the Thanksgiving or Christmas craft easier? The littler ones can do that version. What about harder? The older ones will do that.
Let’s take the Advent Calendar activity listed below. The little kids could make simple envelopes and Advent items; the bigger kids could make more complicated ones.
Have Back-ups Ready
Something simple should be waiting for kids who finish first. You know what they say about idle hands.
Typically, if I don’t have paint/paper, glitter/Mod Podge, etc., ready, the “done” kids turn their attention to messing with their siblings. Or stuffing something down the sink while I’m distracted.
Learn from my mistakes.
Thanksgiving and Christmas Crafts for Multiple Ages and Stages
These seasonal crafts are ideal for a range of ages for a few reasons: they can be broken into smaller steps for other attention spans/abilities, can be thrown together quickly (some more easily than others), and can be dialed up or down in terms of creativity, skill levels, time, etc.
Thanksgiving Crafts for the Under-10 Crowd
- Turkey Pine Cones from A Pumpkin and A Princess: decorate the pinecones as little or as much as attention span, etc., allows. Put out glitter glue, paint, and extra pine cones to mess around with when their turkeys are done. Also! Bake the pinecones at a low temperature in the oven (look it up) to kill the bugs that are surely residing within.
- Turkey Lollipops from Happiness is Homemade: The materials for this craft are cheap, readily available, and absorbing. Lollipops can keep a tableful of kids quiet, but only for so long. Cuz, you know. The sugar.
- Paper Corn craft from Coffee Cups and Crayons: I like the different stages of this craft: sorting the corn kernels, dyeing them, and arranging them on the paper corn husk. Keep extra kernels, dye, and bags ready; get the little ones to shake when they get too wiggly.
- Yarn pumpkins from One Little Project: Everyone will love the sheer goopiness of this project, the older ones will zone out turning the yarn, and the younger ones can be distracted with the balloons.
- Scarecrow pasta puppet from Handmade Charlotte: More food that can also be art (or, in this case, toys)! Everyone gets to be creative, and the little ones especially need the threading opportunity.
Christmas Crafts for the Under-1o Crowd
- Salt Dough and Nature Winter Wonderlands and Wreaths from The Pinterested Parent: It’s worth bundling everyone up to get out and gather materials for this science-y, hand-strengthening activity. This is another great opportunity to gather more pine cones for the littler ones to paint. Make extra dough into ornaments, those are nice teacher, etc gifts-along with a gift card.
- Pinecone Christmas Trees from Eat Sleep Doodle: Hope you have so many pinecones. That have been baked.
- Yarn Star from Country Living: This is a satisfactorily sensory activity that also improves hand strength/dexterity and hand-eye coordination.
- Handmade Santa Slime from The Best Ideas For Kids: For the brave ones.
- DIY Envelope Advent Calendar from Pillar Box Blue: This is such a cool concept! You can put whatever you want in the small packets: photos, pretty doodads, scraps of paper with affirmations/faith sayings, and more.
Conclusion
My kids get antsier as the temperatures drop. I’m looking forward to using these Thanksgiving and Christmas crafts to fill the (relatively) quiet hours.
And, for the love of God, have a good space to keep extra pinecones (that have been baked, in an oven, at 200 degrees).
Want More?
Check out these other craft-y articles:
- 10 Fall Crafts for Toddlers
- Sensory Play Sunday: Low Mess Crafts For Kids by Debbie Chapman
- 12 Easy Christmas Crafts for Toddlers and Preschoolers
Happy gluing!
Love,
