Christmas Arts and Crafts for Toddlers

Toddlers love making arts and crafts and you can use these projects to decorate your home or give as gifts. Putting your child's artwork on display in your home will make your child very happy and help build his or her confidence. Gifting your child's art and craft work to family and friends will bring a smile to their faces. Allowing your toddler to make arts and crafts will help develop their fine motor skills and encourage them to use all that energy in a creative way.

Santa Shapes

Before presenting this craft to your toddler, gather red, white, pink and black construction paper, scissors, crayons and glue. You'll need a blank white piece of paper for the background. Cut out two large red circles for Santa's body, four red rectangles for his arms and legs, a red triangle for his hat, two white ovals for his hands, a white oval for his beard, a small white circle for the pom-pom on his hat, a medium pink circle for his face, two black ovals for his boots, and a black rectangle for his belt. Help your child place and glue the shapes onto the paper creating Santa Claus. Discuss the names and colors of the shapes as you glue them into place. Finish the picture with crayons by helping your toddler draw his eyes, nose, and rosy cheeks with crayons.

Christmas Tree Shapes

This is the same method as above, only you and your toddler will create a Christmas tree. Cut out the shapes from construction paper ahead of time and help your toddler glue them into place. Using a glue stick instead of liquid glue is less messy and easier for toddlers to learn to use.

Snowy Scene with Cotton Balls

Gather a sheet of blue construction paper, cotton balls, a white crayon or white colored pencil, and a black crayon. Use the white crayon or colored pencil to help your toddler draw a snowman in the middle of the paper. Add a black hat, eyes, scarf and arms. Use the white crayon or pencil to draw snow on the top half of the page falling in the sky. You can draw small circles to create this effect and color them in. Help your toddler glue the cotton balls on the bottom half of the page. Teach your toddler about the colors black, white, and blue while you're creating this project.

Santa Mask

For this fun activity you'll need a paper plate, red construction paper, crayons, cotton balls, ribbon or string, glue, and scissors. Help your child cut out eye holes in the paper plate. Have your toddler color the paper plate the same color as your child's skin. Draw a nose with a crayon in the middle of the plate. Glue cotton balls on the bottom part of the plate to create Santa's beard. Cut out a large red triangle from the construction paper and glue it onto the top of the plate. Add a cotton ball to the point of the triangle. Poke two holes into each side of the paper plate and tie a ribbon or string through each hole. Help your child by putting the mask on him or her once the mask is finished drying. Let them look at themselves in the mirror.

Santa Costume with Paper Bags

This craft goes along with the Santa Mask project. You will need a large brown paper grocery bag, red crayons or markers, and scissors. Open the grocery bag and lay it down on one of the widest sides with the opening facing you. Cut the wide side from the middle straight to the bottom of the bag. This will be the front of the Santa suit when it is finished. At the bottom of the bag, cut a large oval. This is where your child's neck and head will go. On both of the long thin sides, poke a hole with the scissors and cut out armholes. Let your child color the entire "vest" red. If the bag has the grocery store logo on it, you can turn the "vest" inside out before he or she colors it so they will have a blank bag. You can also create masks and vests for Mrs. Claus, the elves, or reindeer. Your imagination is your only limit.

Christmas Stories with Stick Puppets

Whether your favorite Christmas Story is about Baby Jesus or Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, you can create your own story show right at home instead of watching it only on television. Help your toddler draw and color the characters of your selected story on construction paper, card stock, or foam paper, outline them with black markers, cut them out and glue them onto craft sticks. Tell the story to your toddler using the stick puppets and change your voice for each character. Your toddler will love this.

Alphabet Book of Christmas

An alphabet theme book is exactly what it sounds like. Each page has one alphabet letter and an object, person, or animal that starts with that letter. Teach your toddler the alphabet while creating this one-of-a-kind keepsake or gift. You can either draw the pictures for your toddler to color or print out coloring pages from the internet. Once you've found the alphabet pages and your toddler has colored them, help your child create a cover for the book. Hole-punch the pages and tie the pages together with string, ribbon, or yarn.

Snow-fingerprint Scenes

You will need black construction paper and white acrylic paint. Acrylic paint doesn't smell as bad as tempera and comes off hands easily. Pour a quarter-sized amount of white paint onto a paper plate. Dip your child's finger into the paint and show them how to create dots with their fingers on the black paper. Tell them they are making snow. Let them make snowy scenes. You may need several sheets of black construction paper because your child will really love the way the white paint shows up and "pops" against the black paper. Talk about the colors white and black to teach a color lesson while he or she is painting.

Use these ideas with your toddler and create wonderful mementos of your early Christmas holidays together. Change these ideas into projects that fit for your child or your budget. Find ways to create new and different crafts from these suggestions. Your toddler will love spending the one-on-one time with you if you're a single mom or time with the entire family if everyone is making Christmas arts and crafts.