This activity will appeal to both kids and caregivers equally; toddlers will think they’re simply having fun with stickers, but you’ll secretly know that the craft hones fine motor skills and teaches direction-taking!

To start, I drew a Christmas tree shape on green construction paper, then cut out and glued down to a sheet of red paper.

Next, draw zig-zag lines across the tree with pen, as if you’re drawing on strings of lights or garlands. I sat Veronika down with this tree and a bunch of happy face circle stickers. You can use Christmas-themed stickers instead, but I wanted her focus to be on the placement of the stickers, not the images.

I asked her if she could put a sticker directly on the black line I had drawn. “Anywhere you see black!” I told her with a big smile. After one moment of hesitation, Veronika aced the task every time!

In fact, when I worried she was running out of blank spaces to cover on the line, I suggested she could start to sticker anywhere. She looked at me like I was crazy and stuck to the line! She even fixed her own errors a few times.

I had intended the activity as a test in listening to instructions only, and never would have guessed my 26-month-old would do so well. Look at this work!

If you have preschoolers, this would make a great “busy bag” activity to work on solo, particularly if you need to, oh, wrap presents.