CHRISTMAS SHELF ACTIVITIES

I observed my older daughter trying to undo the buttons on her pajamas. She started to become very fascinated by the buttons on her clothes and the buttons on other people’s clothes. She has strong fine motor skills and so I decided to create a Christmas shelf activity to meet her interest and need for button work. It was very simple to make, I just sewed some large buttons on a felt Christmas tree and cut out some felt ornaments with slits for buttonholes. When she first saw it, my daughter immediately took it from her shelf and started trying to put the ornaments on the buttons.

Pom Pom Christmas Tree

The tweezers are currently my daughter’s favorite tool. To combine her interest in order and placing objects in a specific place with her love for tweezers, I created the Pom Pom Christmas Tree activity. It was very simple and I didn’t need to buy anything for this activity as it used things I already had laying around the house. (Side note: red pom poms are perfect for all seasons-they’ve been flowers, apples, and now Christmas ornaments! Those seven red Pom Poms have been used year-round).

Stringing Jingle Bells
Another simple-to-prepare activity that makes a useful tool to be used throughout the whole Christmas season! You can choose to keep the bells strung and create shakers to be used throughout the season to accompany singing Christmas carols or deconstruct them each evening to be reused the next day for more stringing practice. (This activity did require some purchases but totaled less than 40,000 VND. I’m not a huge fan of pipe cleaners, but they are so useful for learning to string beads or jingle bells as in this activity- and you can get very sparkly Christmassy-looking ones too!)

Transferring Christmas Baubles
Using smaller-sized baubles that I already had and an egg carton, I created a simple activity to meet my 1 year old’s transferring needs. My younger daughter is very interested in transferring objects so I created the transferring of Christmas baubles, but I added a slight challenge of one-to-one correspondence by adding the egg carton. This way the activity can be enjoyed by both of my children at different ages. At 1 year and at 2.5 years, my daughters both work on this shelf activity with interest and focus.

Christmas Gifts - Matching lids
This is a great independent activity that has a natural control of error-meaning your child will know when they have made a mistake as the activity tells them - aka only one lid matches each box. It takes moments to prepare and gives plenty of fun! You can change it up by placing Christmas objects in the boxes as well! 

Posting with Christmas Ornaments
If you observe your child trying to put objects through an opening they may be interested in posting. I observed my younger daughter starting to do this at the dinner table- she was very interested in putting food into her cup. To support this I made a series of shelf activities for her to place an object through an opening that gradually got smaller. This worked to refine her skills and give her the challenge to keep her interested and motivated. Here is our Christmas-themed posting activity!

Christmas stamps
A simple way to DIY some Christmas-themed stamps is to use craft foam. Just cut out the shape you want from the foam and glue it onto any wooden block you have at home. Now your child can help create Christmas cards for family and friends or a Christmas scene picture!

If you enjoyed this article please share it with someone who could also find it useful. We would love for you to comment on some Christmas activities you have created for your child at home! Thank you for reading and we at Goc Montessori hope you enjoy the holiday season.

Written by

Góc Montessori