3 Christmas Crafts for Toddlers

**UPDATE**
I've moved to ladybugsandlattes.com
You can find this post and more here
***

My little girl loves art. If it involves paint, crayons, glue, and/or paper, she is all over it.

I have seen so many adorable Christmas crafts spreading all over Pinterest, but many of them are too advanced for her little, uncoordinated hands.

I was inspired, however, to dig through my Christmas lesson plans from when I used to teach at a daycare. Here's what we have done in the last week.

1. Hand Print Reindeer with a thumb print nose and thumb print Christmas lights
I added the final details after it dried.

2. Candy Cane Rolling Ball Art

I (very poorly) cut out a candy cane and a few other holiday-themed shapes and taped them inside an old baking pan. I added a few blobs of red paint and helped Cady hold onto the outside of the pan and roll the ball back and forth. This works better with marbles, but I have a 1 year old, so marbles aren't exactly lying around here. We used a medium sized plastic ball from one of her toys.

Pro tip: Have a back up activity available while you clean up the mess. Rolling a ball through paint inside a pan is fun and all, but it won't be satisfactory for a toddler who is expecting to get messy. I taped down the leftover paper scraps and let her use her hands and the ball to paint on them while I cleaned up the rest.

3. Puffy Snowman

Mix equal parts shaving cream and Elmer's glue. It dries puffy and textured. I let Cady paint and then added the finishing touches once it dried.
Here is a close up of how puffy it looks. It looks much better in person, and this is one of my favorite projects to do with little ones.

Christmas and winter are my favorite themes when it comes to creating fun activities and projects for kids. There are some great adult projects, too, but my crafting abilities peaked in middle school. So for now, I will gladly shine while doing art projects with a toddler.