Fun christmassy things to make with (nearly) 3 year old

[LadyCora]

Feeling all misty eyed at Christmas approaching and want to make some christmassy stuff with DD...any ideas what is practical and fun?. S
he's nearly 3. I'm a bit rubbish at making stuff. But have cosy vision of fun together saturday afternoon
hopelessly idealistic runs for sherry

That should of course read
hopelessly idealistic
runs for sherry

Have a look at Activity Village they do an Online Advent Calendar with colouring pages/puzzles/crafts every day
Or Danielle's Place
Or buy some kits from Crafty Crocodiles

This is brilliant, simple, cheap, easily done by a 2yo, and has a pretty end product:

Save a few glass jars - smallish or nicely shaped ones are a bonus.
You also need some coloured tissue paper (£ shop), some PVA glue, a paintbrush, a bit of ribbon or string, and as many tea lights as jars.
Glitter (optional)

Rip up the tissue paper into uneven pieces - 2yo can help with this.
Water down the glue a little bit and splodge it all over the outside of a jar - 2 yo can help with this.
Stick bits of paper to the jar, all overlapping until jar is covered (you will have to fill in gaps left by 2yo.)
Sprinkle with glitter (optional)
Leave to dry. When dry, tie a loop of ribbon around the top of the jar as a handle. Pop in a tea light, et VOILA! Stained glass tea-light holders. Very christmassy, and genuinely done by a child.

Make paper chains by cutting Christmas foil type wrapping paper into strips of the same length, and stick loops together with sticky tape. If you use unpatterned paper, you can adorn with the odd sequin here and there for added glitz.

A nice one I did with DS when he was smaller was getting him to help me make some gift tags.

I let him loose with some red and green ready mix paints to do lines and dribbles on sheets of plain paper. When it was dry we drizzled glue and added glitter. At this point it looked a bit of a mess. I then chopped the resulting papers up into rectangles (which immediately improved the artwork iyswim) and glued them onto bog standard office type parcel tags.

Last year I made salt dough decorations with DS - made some salt dough, use Christmas cutters, add a hole to thread some ribbon. We painted them in Christmas colours, covered in glitter and distributed the finished decorations to my P's, the PIL's etc.

oh fab ideas - thank you!

This is great and will fuel my burning creative need too. My DS is 2.10. I may need some of that sherry by the end of it LadyCora .

Oh I used to adore doing christmasy things when mine were little.

We're getting very close to xmas pud making time, mine used to ^love6 ehlping me make it. All the wieghing out etc (and it's not a recipe that requires exact measurements).

Make cards. There are lovely stickers and stampers out there. Plus glitter. Mine loved glietter.

And even the most cack handed children and adults can make paperchains.

Agree with PP, buy some Christmas stickers and get him to stick them on cards. Easy and satisfying for a three year old. I also use a similar approach to Christmas garland type stuff (I cut out bauble, tree shapes, etc, in card and get DD to decorate with stickers/glitter etc, then string them all together).

However, I disagree with the PP about paper chains. My lot are so cack-handed that I always end up having to do them myself.

DD (2) and I went to our local library today and loaned the usborne christmas make and do book. it has lots of easy things in it which we will be able to do together.

I shall be doing this soon with DD (4). It will make a lovely addition to Christmas decorations

www.ucreatewithkids.com/2010/12/tutorial-hand-print-christmas-tree.html