Quick and Easy Christmas Activities for Kids

Colleen Beck OTR/L
Colleen Beck, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist and the owner and author of The OT Toolbox website. She manages all of The OT Toolbox social media accounts and runs the popular newsletter. Read about Colleen's experience and career as an occupational therapist, including how The OT Toolbox began on our About The OT Toolbox page: https://www.theottoolbox.com/about-us/ Colleen created The OT Toolbox in 2011 and since then has written thousands of blog posts designed to support therapy providers, educators, parents, counselors, admin, and caregivers in promoting the healthy development of kids. Check out Colleen's blog posts below:

This time of year is a busy season for families.  There is a sense of rush, rush, rush to get everything done on time.  The busyness of the Christmas season does not mean that kids can’t play and learn with creative activities.  These are a few ideas that I found on my iphone camera.  These are quick and easy ways to play and learn this Christmas.


Quick and easy activities for busy families this Christmas: snacks, fine motor, math, all with an easy set-up and clean-up.

You may want to follow along with us on our Instagram feed for tons of quick and easy  activities year long.  We’re also sharing fast ideas on our new site, Mommy Needs a Coffee Break where moms can catch a few moments to grab a cup of coffee and play along with their kids or just put their feet up for a mini me-time break while the kids play.  Mommy Needs a Coffee Break has a great Instagram feed too, with fun ideas for quick and easy activities with the kids.

A few easy Christmas Ideas for the Kids…from my iphone:

Healthy Christmas snack for kids: slice green apples into thick slices and add cranberries for a "green wreath" snack.

Healthy Christmas Snack for Kids

Make a healthy Christmas snack for the kids with thick slices of green apples.  Add cranberries to make a “green wreath” snack.  The crisp & chewy and sweet & tart combos of this snack delicious as it is nutitious.

We made these one afternoon and the kids loved them for their Christmas-y cuteness.  Easy to throw together and fun= a Christmas win for mom!

This was another quick and easy snack, that involved a little fun and learning too.   Grab a large graham cracker and break it into shapes.  I used a sharp knife to cut triangles.  Press strait down on the cracker to get a nice strait edge andavoid breaking the corners of the cracker.  I threw in a few gingerbread boy cookies for extra fun.  The kids made shapes, houses, and trees with their cracker tangrams.  Then snack time happened.  


Sometimes baby needs a quick and easy activity while mom whips up dinner.  Or wipes up spilled milk, or folds a quick load of laundry, or… you get the picture.  

Give baby a few brightly colored bowls in Christmas colors and let them explore the textures as they reach, grasp, move, throw, taste, and explore.  Put a few crackers or pieces of fruit (age-appropriate) into the cupes for more tasting fun for baby. 

Quick Soda Dough Recipe

Use our baking soda dough recipe to mix up a batch of baking soda dough.  This is a quick recipe to put together, but will be long on fun as the kids play and create with their soda dough. 

Fine Motor Christmas Activity for Kids

 Use a few items from around the house (garland, tinsel, ribbon, feather boa…you always need a reason to pull out the feather boa…) and something that you can thread.  We used these foam snowmen and wreaths for fine motor skills, bilateral hand coordination, and visual motor skills with this quick and easy activity.  You could thread ornaments, bracelets, pipe cleaners, or anything with a “loop”.

What are your favorite ways to play and learn when the kids need an activity and you are short on time? 

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