9 easy Christmas craft and activity ideas for young children

Here's our pick of the best easy Christmas craft activities for small children

Pine Cone Rudolph | Fingerprint Snowman Christmas Card | Lolly Stick Snowflakes | Egg Box Penguins | Loo Roll Snowmen | Snowman Skittles Game | Jar Snowglobe | Snowman Drawing Race Game

1. Pine Cone Rudolph

This is such a cute idea for a Christmas tree decoration and it's ever so simple to make, as you can see from our how-to video, below. Plus, you can have a fun, super-active prep session with the trip to the park to gather the pine cones.

What you'll need

• Pine cones
• Googly eyes (2 per cone)
• Red pompoms (1 per cone)
• Scissors
• Ribbon/string, for hanging

How to make it

• If your pine cones are very dirty, wash them in hot water and leave to dry
• Glue 2 googly eyes and 1 pompon onto each cone
• Cut lengths of ribbon/string and one to the back of each one
• Once the glue is dry, hang up on the tree

2 Fingerprint Snowman Christmas Card

Make grandparents and close relatives feel extra-special when your child produces a Christmas card handmade especially for them. This fingerprinting idea is something even toddlers can enjoy (although you'll need to add the felt-tip pen features yourself).

What you'll need

• A4 sheet of coloured card or paper, folded
• White paint
• Black felt-tip pen
• Orange felt-tip pen

How to make it

• Cover your child's thumb in white paint and then help them press it onto the front of the card
• Repeat multiple times, overlapping the prints to make 3 big circles side by side, with a smaller circle on top of each big circle (watch our how-to video, above, to see what this looks like)
• Once the paint has dried, use the black pen to draw buttons, mouths, eyes and stick arms
• Use the orange pen to draw carrot noses

See more fingerprint and handprint Christmas card ideas

3. Lolly Stick Snowflakes

This Christmas-tree decoration idea is great for fine-finger control: lots of sequins, stickers and shiny gems to select, pick up and stick in nice patterns.

What you'll need

• Lolly sticks
• White paint
• Sequins and stickers and stick-on gems
• Ribbon
• Glue

How to make it

• Glue sets of 3 lolly sticks into a snowflake shape, and leave to dry
• Paint the snowflakes white, then add sequins while the paint is still wet
• Stick on stickers and gems
• Stick a loop of ribbon to the back and hang up on the tree

4. Egg Box Penguins

Egg boxes are an endless source of craft-idea inspiration – and we love these friendly penguins made from the individual 'cup' sections of the egg box. So your child can make 6 at once, if they're feeling particularly excited about all that black paint...

What you'll need

• Egg carton
• Black paint
• Yellow card
• Scissors
• White card or paper
• Glue
• Googly eyes

How to make it

• Cut out an egg cup from the egg carton
• Paint the egg cup black and leave to dry
• Cut out a beak and 2 feet from the yellow card card
• Cut out the penguin's tummy in white card
• Stick on the beak, feet and belly
• Stick on the googly eyes

5 Loo Roll Snowmen

These simple snowmen look great on a shelf – and they are also the main feature of our fun Snowmen Skittles Game, below

What you'll need

• Loo rolls
• White paint
• Paintbrush
• Scissors
• Coloured paper (including orange)
• Glue
• Black pen

How to make it

• Paint the loo rolls white
• While the paint is drying, cut out a carrot nose from the orange paper, and a colourful scarf for each snowman from other coloured paper
• Once the paint is dry, stick the nose and scarf onto the loo roll
• Draw on eyes, a friendly smile and buttons with the black pen. You can have lots of fun giving them different expressions or even painting on hats and other decorations

6. Snowman Skittles Game

The beauty of this game – apart from the fabulously crafted Snowman Skittles, of course – is that you can vary the playing time to suit your child's mood and you can play with anything from 1 to 4 or 5 players

What you'll need

• 6 Loo Roll Snowmen (see no 5, above)
• Paper, scrunched into a ball

How to play

• Stand the snowmen up in a skittles pyramid shape (3 at the back, 2 in the middle row, 1 at the front)
• Take it in turn to throw the scrunched paper ball at the skittles to knock them down. Each player has 2 throws and scores 1 point for each skittle they knock down
• Repeat for as many rounds as you like
• Add up the total points each player scores

7. Jar Snowglobe

This easy-to-make snow globe is filled with biodegradable glitter – and will carry on fascinating your child for long after the crafting is done. Do be sure to screw that lid on really tight, though.

What you'll need

• A clear bottle or jar with a tight-fitting lid
• Water
• Eco-friendly glitter (such as Honest Glitter)
• Light corn syrup (at major supermarkets or online at Amazon)
• Stick-on gems

How to make it

• Fill the bottle or jar half full of water
• Tip in a handful of eco glitter
• Screw the lid on tightly and shake the bottle/jar
• Unscrew and top up with corn syrup, leaving a little room for air at the top. Screw the lid back on tightly
• Now decorate the bottle/jar with stick-on gems

8. Snowman Drawing Race Game

The idea of this game is to see who can complete their snowman drawing first: the only catch is, you can't draw each snowman part until you've thrown a specific number on the dice...

What you'll need

• A dice
• Paper
• Pens

How to play

• On a sheet of paper, draw a snowman and then label it with numbers for each part. So the head = 1; the body = 2; the buttons = 3; the carrot nose = 4; the eyes = 5, and the mouth = 6
• Take it in turns to roll the dice
• If you roll a 1, you can draw the head; if you roll a 2, you can draw the body – and so on. If you roll a number for a body part you've already drawn, you can't draw anything else
• The winner is the player who completes their snowman first

Pics: Emma Omuna, Giggly. Videos: Emma Omuna

Read more:

• How to make magical eco-friendly reindeer food
• 10 magical ways to bring Santa to your house
• 50 Christmas Eve traditions to start with your family