Monthly Archives: December 2018

Building with Marshmallows

Buddy talked me into buying a bag of jumbo marshmallows when we were purchasing candy for our gingerbread houses. And of course, he only used one, which meant I needed other ideas for marshmallows. First, we painted with the marshmallows, and that was a lot of fun. (Read more about that activity here.) But once that was done, we needed something else to do with all of our leftover marshmallows.

I found the idea for building with jumbo marshmallows from Kids Activities Blog. After pulling out some marshmallows and straws, I cut the straws into different sized pieces. I cut them at an angle so there was a sharp point to pierce the marshmallow at each end. Once I did that, I brought Buddy over, and I showed him how to stick the straws into the marshmallows.

Buddy started by making a square. Then he filled it up with all of the rest of the marshmallows. He had a pretty good stack in there before they started falling over.

After that, I showed Buddy how to make a building. We worked together to build a triangular pyramid shaped building together. Then, we tried to make a cube. It was a little tricky for Buddy to build on his own, so he preferred making two dimensional shapes.

This was a fun and easy activity that could be done at many different ages. Preschoolers like Buddy may be better off working on two dimensional shapes, and older kids should be able to build three dimensional ones. I’d like to do this activity again when Buddy’s a little older to see what he can do.

Do you have any other ideas for using up marshmallows? Please share in the comments if you do.

Santa Hat Stacking Game

Buddy loves to play games, so I decided to add “play a Christmas game” to our advent chain this week. (Read more about our activity advent chain here.) But I knew that I wanted an easy, low prep game, since the week before Christmas is always very busy. When I saw a Santa hat cup game on Lalymom’s blog, I knew it would be perfect.

This game is so easy and fun! I pulled out some miniture plastic cups that I bought awhile ago and some pom pom balls. Buddy loves playing with pom poms, so he was super excited to see them. The game is simple to play. You put a cup down and add a pom pom to the top to be the ball of the hat. Then the next person puts down his or her cup and pom. If your hat knocks down the tower, you lose. We have large tweezers in the bag with the poms, so we decided to use that to put the pom poms on the cups.

After we played our game, Buddy wanted to play with the cups and pom poms. He made “pies” by putting the poms in the cups. Then he had a lot of fun serving them.

This was a fun, seasonal game. We won’t play it year round, but I know we’ll try it again next December.

Merry Christmas from my family to yours! I hope you have a wonderful and restful holiday.

Jingle Bell Play: A Preschool STEM Activity

I’ve been on the lookout for fun and easy holiday activities to do with Buddy this December. Buddy loves playing with his magnatiles, so when I saw a jingle bell magnatile activity on AndNextComesL’s blog, I knew it would be perfect. This is a STEM activity, which means it builds skills in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics. This particular activity focuses on the science of magnets, engineering with building magnatiles, and mathematics of working with different types of shapes. 

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

I ordered a bag of assorted jingle bells for this activity, which was perfect. Some of them were very tiny, though, so they’re definitely not appropriate for younger children. I put the bells in a small cup, and I told Buddy that we would be decorating trees with the bells. Buddy loved the ideas of the bells, but he wanted to build gingerbread houses instead. 

Buddy put the bells inside the cubes and along the edges as well. He kept adding more and more until we used almost all of the bells! Even though only parts of the edge are magnets, they still held a lot of the bells. 

After building the house, Buddy decided he wanted to put the bells on a train. He poured the bells into the middle of the train base, and he was surprised when they flew to the edges. I thought he would be excited by it, but actually, he was frustrated because he wanted to put some squares on the side instead. He carefully pulled each one to the middle, but when they got too close to the edge, they flew back to the magnets. It was a great science demonstration of the power of magnets. 

Once we had finished making the train, I decided to pull out our horseshoe magnet to experiment with the bells. We were able to pull the bells from the sides of our houses with the magnet. Then, Buddy stuck the end of the magnet into the cup of bells. He was delighted to see that a massive amount of bells stuck to it. 

Buddy had a blast with the bells, and we’ve already pulled them out again. On that day, Buddy was trying to get plastic pony beads to stick to the magnatiles like the bells, so we talked again about how magnets stick to metal. And then we pulled the bells back out to play. I’m sure this will be an activity we do every December for years to come, and I expect we’ll probably do it outside the holiday season too. 

Christmas Marshmallow Painting

Buddy and I have been having a lot of fun doing Christmas activities this week. Our first activity was making a gingerbread train, and when we bought the candy, Buddy begged me to buy jumbo marshmallows. He promised me he’d use them on his train, and he then he only used one. So when we finished and had a full bag of marshmallows left over, I realized I needed to find something else to do with them. Buddy heard me comment about finding a marshmallow activity, and he specifically asked to paint with them. And that’s how we came up with Christmas marshmallow painting. 

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

I grabbed a piece of painting paper from our paint pad, and I drew a large triangle. Then I grabbed our Crayola washable paints, and put some colors on a paper plate. Finally, I pulled out a few jumbo marshmallows and Q-tips to use as paint brushes, and I found Buddy’s painting smock. 

Buddy was so excited to start painting with the marshmallows. I showed him how to stamp with the marshmallow, and I told him to stay inside of the triangle to make the tree. He did a great job of very carefully covering the area of the triangle with green paint. 

Once he had finished the tree, Buddy got a new marshmallow to make the trunk. I told him to make straight lines down to make the trunk. 

After Buddy made the tree, I did a new plate of paint with colors for lights and ornaments. He did one large marshmallow yellow stamp to be a star at the top. The rest were small dots made with Q-tips. We couldn’t decide if they were Christmas lights or ornaments. Buddy said they were both. 

Buddy had so much fun with this activity, he asked to do it again the following day! So I cut up the painting paper, and we made Christmas cards. This was such a simple idea, and it was so easy to clean up! I just threw away the marshmallows, Q-tips, and paper plates, and it was done.  I’m sure we will be doing marshmallow paintings again soon. 

Easy Christmas Activities to Do With a Preschooler

December is here, which means Buddy and I have started our advent activity chain. I spend some time in late November deciding on some activities to do with Buddy every day. Some are complicated, such as making a gingerbread house, and some are much more simple. (You can read more about this activity and get a list of ideas here.) I want to focus on the easiest ones to do here, as well as some slightly more complicated ones that are our favorites. I’m sure that I’m not the only parent who wants to do special holiday activities, but doesn’t have a ton of time to prepare them. These are all activities we’ve done and loved, or are ones on our to do list this year.

  • Make Christmas cards
  • Play with jingle bells – I saw this post from And Next Comes L’s blog, where they play with magna-tiles and jingle bells, and I can’t wait to try it!
  • Practice using scissors with a Christmas cutting box
  • Have a Christmas dance party
  • Decorate a play doh Christmas tree
  • Learn Jingle Bells and make a video to share
  • Make salt dough ornaments
  • Make cinnamon applesauce ornaments
  • Play a Christmas game – Some ones I’m considering for this year are Jingle Bell Toss from Playground Parkbench and the Santa Hat Stacking Game from Lalymom.
  • Make a Christmas painting
  • Build a fort and read Christmas stories
  • Throw indoor snowballs
  • Play with cotton ball “snow”                                                         
  • Create a Christmas scene with stickers
  • Color a Christmas picture
  • Practice fine motor skills and decorate a tree with playdoh or pom poms – There is a great, free printable on You Clever Monkey’s blog.
  • Go to the library and check out Christmas books
  • Walk down the street and look at Christmas lights
  • Play outside in the snow followed by a cup of hot cocoa
  • Decorate a gingerbread house – this last one isn’t very easy, but it’s one of my favorite things to do this time of year, so I had to include it! (Wilton has preassembled gingerbread house kits (affiliate link) that do make the process much easier!)

Do you have other fun holiday activities to do with a preschooler? Please share them in the comments.