While the holiday season should be a time of joy and fun family activities, it’s also a time of year when it’s easy to feel totally overwhelmed. Finding your family’s rhythm and creating Montessori-inspired activity trays can help. With activity trays, you’re less likely to feel you need a new craft each day. If you love doing Christmas crafts, you can do as many as you like. If they’re a burden for you, you can just create a few activity trays and allow your child to repeat a craft as many times as he or she wishes during the month.
Turning Christmas Crafts into Montessori-Oriented Activities
I have a post on turning Christmas crafts into Montessori-oriented activities, which gives ideas for turning some Christmas tree crafts into Montessori-inspired activities. You can use the ideas to turn a Christmas craft your child would enjoy into a Montessori-inspired activity tray. Having just a few activities can even help your child meet the needs of a particular sensitive period by repeating an activity over and over.
An activity that’s often easy to make into a Montessori-inspired tray is one using beads and pipe cleaners. Here’s an example of a tray created using a pipe-cleaner-and-bead activity for Valentine’s Day.
Beaded Ornaments Made Into Montessori-Inspired Christmas Crafts
Here are some posts with beaded ornaments that could easily be made into Montessori-inspired Christmas activity trays:
Bead Ornaments for Christmas (Photo from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas)
Easy Bead Ornaments for Kids from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
Icicle Ornaments (Photo from Happy Hooligans)
Icicle Ornaments from Happy Hooligans
Pipe-Cleaner Snowflakes from The Craft Junkie
Easy Christmas Ornaments to Make from Frugal Fun for Boys
Ornaments with Pipe Cleaners and Wooden Beads from Buggy and Buddy
Other Activities That Could Be Made into Montessori-Inspired Christmas Crafts
I published a post last week on 40+ Christmas Countdown Activities with links to posts containing tons of Christmas activities. You can also find tons of Christmas activities of all kinds on my Kids’ Christmas Activities Pinterest Board.
When you’re choosing activities, just remember that you don’t need to be perfect. Be sure to check out these two posts from my 40+ Christmas Countdown Activities: Our Simple Advent Calendar Ideas and Tips for Creating Your Own from Fantastic Fun and Learning and Advent Ideas, Rhythm from Little Wonders’ Days. Both posts have some great ideas for making Christmas countdown activities less overwhelming. Have fun! 🙂
More Christmas Resources
Amazon Affiliate:
Hundreds of December Holiday Activities for Kids
Learn more about my eBook Montessori at Home or School: How to. Teach Grace and Courtesy!
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Thank you for featuring our bead ornaments. It is such a wonderful fine motor activity – isn’t it. My girls so enjoy beading and we ended up with some lovely ornaments for the tree that they made themselves and were very proud of.
My pleasure, Bern! It’s a fabulous activity! My kids had a great time making beaded wreaths and candy canes one year, but I haven’t seen the stars before … very cool! 🙂
Thank you for the wisdom shared in, “If you love doing Christmas crafts, you can do as many as you like. If they’re a burden for you, you can just create a few activity trays and allow your child to repeat a craft as many times as he or she wishes during the month.” Connected, I just finished our Advent plan which include ideas for Montessori-inspired crafts and activities. The plan can be found at http://www.traininghappyhearts.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-literature-rich-advent-alphabet-of.html
Thanks so much for your kind comment, Martianne! And thanks for sharing your beautiful Advent plan. It’s perfect to feature as part of my post this Friday. 🙂
Thanks for sharing! Love it!
Thanks, Airamty! I hope you’re having a wonderful December so far! 🙂
totally off topic, hope that’s OK, can you pin this to your special needs board? add it to your special needs blog post/s? it’s by a mom to four children with aspergers, she’s written a book/books and developed materials based on Montessori for aspergers children… this activity she did is wonderful, for any child… thanks deb! http://asperkids.com/unstructured-time-in-the-missing-sock-zone/
Thanks so much for letting me know, Lisa … what a wonderful resource! I pinned it to my Special Needs Board and added it to my Montessori-Inspired Special Needs Support post at https://livingmontessorinow.com/2012/03/13/montessori-inspired-special-needs-support/
Thank you so much for sharing and hosting. You always find the most inspiring and doable work for us. Have a great week!!
Thanks so much for your kind comment, Discovering Montessori! I always look forward to seeing the great activities on your blogs! 🙂
such wonderful activities! though my kids attended Montessori for pre-school MANY years ago, I think creating activity trays for them now wouldn’t be such a bad idea;)
Thanks, Jackie! I can relate … I used hands-on Montessori activities to review concepts when my kids were much older! 🙂
Great ideas!! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!!
Thanks so much, Carrie! I hope you and your family have a blessed Christmas. 🙂