Christmas Sparkle Cloud Dough

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Christmas Cloud Dough (10)

Cloud dough is a great alternative to homemade play dough since it comes together from just two ingredients. Plus it’s one of those great sensory materials that you can vary only slightly to make it fit each season!

To wit, today it was time for sparkly Christmas cloud dough. I added 2 cups flour and 1/2 cup vegetable oil to a craft tray, and simply mixed it all together with my hands. (Note: You can use an equal amount of cornstarch in place of the flour if you want the dough to be a more pure snow white).

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We then added green glitter for some Christmas spirit! Veronika was thrilled to see the sparkles and began spooning through the mixture with a little scoop.

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I showed her that she could squeeze it into balls, which we called “Christmas cakes”.

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It also made great snowmen if we piled a few atop each other.

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We then pulled out an arctic set of plastic animals she loved tromping them through the dough, adding an imaginative element to the sensory play.

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Overall, this was very simple but clearly great fun!

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Creamy Spinach Pita Pizza

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A creamy spinach sauce takes the place of tomato sauce in this recipe, which is perfect for the next time you need a novel spin on pizza night.

Ingredients:

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 minced garlic cloves
  • 1 tablespoon flour
  • 4 tablespoons plain non-dairy milk
  • 5 ounces fresh baby spinach, finely chopped
  • 2 whole-wheat pitas
  • 4 slices tomato
  • 2 tablespoons shredded vegan Parmesan
  1. Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and saute for 2 minutes.
  2. Whisk in the flour, then add the milk 1 tablespoon at a time, stirring to combine.
  3. Add the spinach and cook for about 2 minutes, just until wilted.
  4. To prepare the pizzas, spread each pita with about 1/3 cup spinach mixture. Top evenly with the tomato slices and sprinkle evenly with the Parmesan.
  5. Broil for 2 minutes, checking to make sure the pitas don’t burn. Cut into wedges to serve.

National Sock Day

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December 4 is National Sock Day, celebrating the glory that is a pair of matching socks. Today was not about lost socks from the dryer, or old socks turned into crafts, but all about a lasting matched pair.

We love celebrating silly holidays like this, so of course I treated everyone to a new pair today! I got Christmas bows, Veronika got little elephants, and Travis received Darth Vader.

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The kids immediately wanted to race around the house in their slippery new socks.

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Just in time, Travis’s Highlights magazine had a sock-matching puzzle to find 8 matching pairs. In a pinch, you can have fun with the real thing; do a load of laundry and have your happy helpers match up all the socks!

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Then finish your celebration by dining on a famous pair: Peas and carrots? Peanut butter and jelly? Here’s to perfect pairs!

Painting with Baby Food

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We had a few leftover jars of early-stage baby food (i.e. smooth purees) that Veronika will never eat at this point. So we decided to paint with them instead!

I laid down a long piece of butcher paper and poured two colors (er, flavors) of baby food onto paper plates. We had yellow/peach paint and purple paint.

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At first I thought we would use this like finger paint, but Veronika was already playing with her toy cars this morning and it turned into car painting, instead! I showed her how to drive a car through a plate, and then along the paper.

She didn’t waste any time, and soon was happily vrooming. I loved that she talked about colors while she played, too. “Red car makes yellow tracks! Blue car makes purple tracks!”

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Your child might want to get in there with fingers instead of cars, which of course is perfectly fine since this is an edible paint. And there’s a high probability that the paint might turn into snack time, too!

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After she was done driving the cars around, Veronika decided they needed a car wash. I set down a tray filled with a little sudsy water and she spent arguably just as long driving the cars through the wash as she had painting with them. All in all it was a nice activity for our morning.

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Tape Resist Candy Cane Painting

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Tape Resist Candy Cane (7)

Tape resist is a great art method for toddlers because they get to make a mess but still wind up with a recognizable image or picture. This candy cane version is just right around the holidays!

I first placed horizontal strips of masking tape on white construction paper, then squirted generous blobs of red fingerpaint all over it. I was glad we did this in a craft tray, because it definitely got messy.

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All Veronika had to do now was smear! She quickly decided she wanted to use yellow paint instead, so I let her play with that on the side and finished off the red version, making sure to wipe off excess paint.

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Immediately peel off the strips of tape, then let the paint dry completely. “Look what I made!” Veronika proudly said when she spotted it drying on the table.

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Once dry, I cut the paper into candy cane shapes and glued them against a green paper backdrop. You can hang these from a door if you attach a loop of ribbon, or simply tape to a wall as holiday decor.

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No one will believe your toddler can make such straight lines, but they can!

Wrapping Paper Stocking

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As you wrap gifts this holiday season, no doubt you’ll end up with just as many scraps and small bits of wrapping paper as I do. So after some early gift wrapping today, I gave Veronika the leftovers!

She loved looking at all the different patterns before we even started crafting with them, particularly seeing images of Santa Claus and Christmas trees.

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I then gave her a glue stick to smear all over a piece of green construction paper and showed her how to add the scraps of wrapping paper any which way.

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I made sure to leave a little space blank at the top, but other than that, all the placement was up to her!

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Once the glue dried, I cut out a simple Christmas stocking shape, and wrote her name at the top.

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This makes a great decoration to hang around the holidays and is great for early name recognition, too!

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Easy Snowflake Craft

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Easy Snowflake Craft (4)

Here’s a quick snowflake craft for toddlers to put together. Depending how many your child wants to make, you can hang just one in a window or create a whole snowstorm of them!

Ideally I would have had two shades of blue paper for this project, but since I only had dark blue, we scribbled all over a piece of white paper with blue crayon. Of course Veronika was a very happy scribbler! Now we had two shades of blue, which I then cut into strips about 1-inch wide.

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Use a glue stick to arrange 5 or 6 strips of paper into a snowflake shape.

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Next, I poured a little white paint into a paper plate and showed Veronika how to dip in a q-tip and dot onto the snowflake. She loved this painting method!

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Let dry, then hang in the window like a giant snowflake drifting down. This is the perfect craft to look at while we wait for winter to give us the real thing!

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Cotton Ball Snowman, Two Ways

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A snowman made of cotton balls is a toddler classic for a reason; after all every toddler seems to love soft, puffy cotton balls, and they really do make adorable snowmen!

The first version Veronika and I made today involved more parental work than the second. I traced 3 sizes of circle cookie cutters on contact paper, then cut out. Tape down to a piece of construction paper with double-sided tape so that the sticky part of the contact paper faces up. Now have your toddler cover with cotton balls!

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The three circles will immediately resemble the head, torso, and bottom of a snowman. This was a great opportunity to point out the relative sizes of the circles.

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I then cut a few additional details from construction paper which Veronika could help glue on, including an orange carrot nose, a red scarf, and black circles for buttons and eyes. Make sure to have your toddler help squeeze out the glue, which is great for those little finger muscles!

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The second version we made allowed Veronika to be more in charge. This time, we simply smeared a glue stick onto construction paper in circular motions, a big circle on the bottom and smaller on top.

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After sticking on cotton balls for the body, I then gave Veronika pom poms to add for decorations. This was a great way to give her agency over how the snowman turned out.

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If your child wants to add a background, use a white crayon for a snowy scene. For all that, Veronika’s favorite part of the whole activity was dumping cotton balls from one container to another, which was just fine.

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As I said, toddlers love those fluffy little cotton balls!

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Insta-Graham Houses

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Insta-Graham Houses (9)

You can always make gingerbread from scratch, but if your kids want to decorate gingerbread houses in a hurry, look no further than graham crackers! We love the vegan s’moreables from Kinnikinnick; armed with those plus store-bought vegan frosting plus empty cartons of non-dairy creamer, we were ready to go.

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We first smeared some of the frosting over the sides of the cleaned and empty cartons. Press on graham crackers to each side of the carton. The fit wasn’t perfect, but we weren’t going for Instagram perfection here!

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Now use additional frosting as “glue” to add candy details. We used candies from Yum Earth, as well as mini candy canes and Dandies mini marshmallows.

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Travis loved making window frames…

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…and was particular proud of the marshmallow door he created with a front path made of jelly beans.

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For snow, we added extra frosting on the top of the carton, then sprinkled down shredded coconut. A blizzard!

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Little sister Veronika got a turn to decorate, too! She loved alternating between taking bites of candy and sticking one onto the carton where I had applied frosting.

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There’s lots more you can do here, depending how crafty the family is feeling! Make trees from upside down ice cream cones coated in frosting and green sprinkles, or add tile roofs, or turn yours into log cabins with the aid of pretzel sticks. I confess, though, we skipped all that.

There are magical families who make their gingerbread houses last as beautiful decorations throughout the holiday season. Needless to say, we are not that magical family; within moments the house was part of Travis’s Star Wars Lego battle.

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But I had happy smiling kids, and that’s the most Insta-graham-able thing of all!

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Snowy White Play Dough

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I love making homemade play dough with a seasonal theme, and this snowy white version is perfect now that winter is near and snowy days are ahead! The secret to that pure white is to use cornstarch instead of regular flour.

To make this silky-smooth play dough, combine the following in a bowl:

1 and 1/2 cups cornstarch

1/2 cup salt

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 tablespoon cream of tartar

Add 1 cup boiling water and stir until combined. Let cool.

Place the dough on a craft tray and knead to the right consistency. You may need to sprinkle with a little extra cornstarch. We also then added a little bit of silver glitter, which made it sparkle just like fresh-fallen snow.

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Now it was time to play! Veronika had so much fun with this snowy-themed dough. First we simply rolled out snowballs or snowmen. Red beads made fun decorations!

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It was also great as pretend cookie dough, and I gave Veronika star- and snowman-shaped cookie cutters to keep with our seasonal theme.

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Her favorite use for it, though, was pretending it was a layer of arctic ice (or, as she called it, the snowy beach). I pulled out a set of arctic animals who could romp through this wintry land.

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“Seal is on the beach!” she would say with delight, or, “Orca is in the water!”

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The play dough is also great for leaving animal “tracks” in the snow. She loved hopping along an arctic hare or stomping along the wolf and fox.

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After spending some time with the play dough together, it was great for her solo play, too; I loved seeing her imagination and senses at work.

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