Preschool Christmas Countdown

With over a decade and a half of Red Ted Art crafty fun being shared here.. I have accumulated quite some resources for you. Sometimes, these can become a little overwhelming or even hard “to find”. So, I thought it would be fun to bring together some fabulous Preschool Christmas Crafts as a Preschool Christmas Countdown or if you want, a Preschool Activity Advent Calendar. We have shared a collaborative Toddler Virtual Advent calendar before, but this is a brand new one, with lots of craft ideas for toddlers and preschoolers.

The idea behind this advent calendar is simple – you can download the pdf – and either print it (to tick off your activities), keep it on your desk top (and click on each window each day), as well as print the preschool craft “coupons” off and pop them into a physical advent calendar at home.

Which ever way you choose to use this resource, we have EVERY DECEMBER DAY running up to Christmas Day sorted for fun and cute and easy preschool Christmas Crafts! Make it a family thing and get all your kids to join in.

Note: this is part of a set of resources.. we also have for you:

• Kids Crafts Advent Calendar (aimed at 5 – 12yrs old kids and students)
• Toddler Creative Countdown (a collaboration with 24 Kids Activity Bloggers)
• Paper Crafts Advent Calendar (requires the least prep and only basic supplies) (coming soon)
• Ornament Advent Calendar (fill the tree with keepsake ornaments)
• Your DIY Handmade Filler Advent Calendar (you would need to work on this during the month of November)
• Living Advent Calendars (a neighbourhood collaboration, which needs to be organised in November)
• Photo Advent Calendar (this makes a great gift to relatives)

Preschool Christmas Countdown PDF and free printables

As mentioned, you can grab the Christmas Countdown as a free printable to tick of with your kiddos as you go, you can use the craft “coupons” to pop them into your advent calendar and/ or you can use the clickable PDF on a daily basis.

Supplies List

• Paper Plates
• Two crafts, require green pipecleaners & beads (sparkly green are fun too), though you can get away with white pipecleaners as well I think! If you don’t have any, an alternative craft has also been linked
• Paints
• Cardstock for card making + envelopes
• Paper in different colours
• Scissors, pens and glue
• String or bakers twine or ribbons for hanging or threading activities
• Cotton wool
• Large preschool friendly sewing needle
• A printer (to make things easy for you towards the end of the countdown)
• Craft sticks or washed and recycled popsicle sticks
• Optional – felt scraps, pom poms and tissue paper scraps (but again alternatives can be used), googly eyes
• Coffee filters

Recycling and Nature Craft Supplies

• Pine cones
• Twigs
• Recycled shirt buttons (alternative suggestions will be provided)
• Odd socks (alternatives will be suggested)
• Toilet paper rolls

Store cupboard supplies

• Salt dough ingredients (salt, flour and water) + cookie cutters of choise
• A potato or two
• Oranges to dry
• Flour for puffy paint
• Homemade Snow Recipe (conditioner and baking soda – however a total of 6 different recipes are provided, so hopefully one will suit your needs!)

Preschool Activities Advent Calendar Ideas

As with our older Kids Crafts Advent Calendar, I have put a little thought into the order of these crafts. Obviously you can do them whichever way you like and you don’t have to use the free printable pdf at all… but in general, I went with things like greeting cards first – so that you could make and post these if you wish, with more wintery crafts towards the end, so you can enjoy them through to the new year! But it doesn’t really matter what order you do things in. Ultimately this Preschool Christmas Countdown is for you and your kids to have fun, make memories and create some lovely crafts and art projects!

1. Salt Dough Ornament Stars

Let’s start off with this Christmas classic – check out our favouriet salt dough recipe and make some simple cookie cutter salt dough ornaments. In this instance, we made stars and had lots of fun painting them gold afterwards. But you can use any Christmas themed cookie cutter you like. We love salt dough ornaments as they make great gifts to grandparents too and you can use them as ornaments, gift wrap decorations or even string them up as a Christmas garland!

2. Paper Plate Reindeer Purse

How adorable is our Paper Plate Reindeer Purse? Making paper plate purses or bags for little ones to carry around is a wonderful childhood classic! A great way to accessorize your preschooler’s Christmas outfit. In this instance we made the cutest little Reindeer Paper Plate Purse! Too cute.

3. Pipecleaner Christmas Tree Ornament

This is a lovely fine motor activity for preschoolers! Beading beads onto pipecleaners is great for their concentration and fine motor skills. In this instance we combine pipecleaners, pony beads and craft sticks to make adorable Pipecleaner Christmas Tree Ornaments. Don’t have the supplies? Then how about making some classic paper baubles using preschooler left over art?

4. Potato Print Polar Bears and friends

Let’s make Christmas cards mentioned in my introduction. Making Christmas Cards is always a wonderful Christmas activity, whatever your child’s age. It is a great way to connect with family and friends over the holiday season. And I know OUR Grandma has really treasured these cards we sent to them over the years. So let’s combine another childhood classic – potato stamping or potato printing with Christmas Card making. We have three designs for you – a Potato Print Polar Bear Card, a Potato Print Penguin Card and my favourite, the Potato Print Walrus Card! We actually used ours as Thank You Cards AFTER Christmas. But you can make these ahead of time too!

5. Paper Plate Christmas Tree Twirler

Next up in our DIY Advent Calendar, we are making some Paper Plate Christmas Tree Twirlers. They are SO SO SO easy to maek and look ever so effective – whether you hang these into your preschoolers bedroom or are using them in a preschool classroom. These make fun Christmas decorations to make this holiday season!

6. Pinecone Snowy Owls

We ADORE these Snowy Pinecone Owls. I know I say that about a lot of these advent calendar craft ideas.. but I do rather like crafting! Ha! The reason why I love these snowy owls, is that the cotton wool and the pinecones are such wonderful textures and they are so different too. They work really well together and make for a great sensory experience.. plus… the owls are really cute! And a great opportunity to read some picture books about snowy owls too. If you don’t have felt and googly eyes used in this craft originally, you can use colourful card or paper and draw your own eyes to stick on. They would still look wonderful!

7. Super Simple Penguin Cards (part of a set of 8 designs)

Time to make Christmas Cards again. This time we have a super simple penguin card design. Depending on the time or ability levels of your toddlers and preschoolers, you can precut the different parts in bulk (layer paper to cut in one go) and get the children to glue down the features! We share a Penguin Card first, however the penguin is part of a super simple set of 8 Christmas Cards to try out. I am pretty certain your toddler will love the Snowman Cards too!

8. Button Snowflake Ornaments

Of course all countdown calendars need a snowflake, we have coffee filter paper snowflakes later, but are making these button snowflake ornaments now. Ours went as a gift to Grandpa! And it comes out every year on his Christmas Tree taking pride and place. So lovely. For this one, we recycled popsicles sticks and used recycled shirt buttons from our workshirts. If you don’t have a bunch of white buttons ready to craft with, you can make these as colourful snowflakes too – just add any crafty bits and pops – sequins, mini pom poms, stickers, small beads.. paint your craft stick in white, light blue and blue and then decorate to your heart’s content.

9. Santa Stars

Our fun advent calendar activities continue with some Santa Stars! I remember making these Santa stars as a child myself. So they obviously left an impression on me. So when my kids where tots, we had to give them a go too. We loved them so much, that we made Salt Dough Santa Stars and Cookie Santa Stars since. But start off with the paper Santa Stars first!

10. Puffy Paint Snowglobe Christmas Cards

Homemade puffy paint is like magic! The kids will not only love the art project but also the process of making the paint puff. We we turned out puffy paint into Snowglobe Greeting Cards (that we used as Thank You cards after Christmas). But you can simply use these as an art project too!

11. Toilet Roll Snowman Bowling

Of course we need to some Toilet Paper Roll Crafting in a fun Christmas activity calendar.. we love crafting with the eco friendly, cheap (aka free) and oh so versatile toilet paper roll. I appreciate that not everyone is a fan of the “toilet” bit, so you can also used kitchen paper towel tube cut in two.. or use the insides of Christmas wrapping paper tubes etc. In this craft, we make a Toilet Paper Roll Snowmen – with odd sock hats and scarves. If you don’t have odd socks, you can give them pipecleaner ear muffs, or use felt rolled into a tube and tied at the top. Or simply let your snowman go bare headed!

Once your snowman are complete, this also doubles up as a toy, as you can have a go at playing snowman bowling. If you really want to up the ante, you can add numbers to the back of your snowmen and add some cheekiy counting and adding too!

12. Sensory play with Homemade Fake Snow

Making homemade fake snow is super easy! We haven’t just shared one (favourite) fake snow recipe, but 6! This way, I am SURE you can find the ingredients at home without having to go out and making lots of unnecessary purchases! Once you have made your fake snow recipe, it is time for some sensory fun. Use it for playing with snow plough toys, with winter animals or us it practice letter tracing and more. Great for some sensory and mindfulness downtime!

13. Free Christmas Lacing Cards Coloring Pages

Time for a breather, half way through our advent calendar. Let’s simply print off these adorable set of Christmas lacing cards (either in full colour or colour your own) and keep the kids busy with this simple lacing activity!

Don’t have a printer? Grab one of your hoilday cards. Cut it the cover into a circle, triangle or keep it square.. then make some lacing holes with a hole punch and get your tots and preschoolers lacing!

14. Dried Orange Slices Reindeer

We love love love working with traditional Christmas materials – and dried orange slices is one such thing! You can either make your own dried orange slices, or buy them ready made online (Etsy is a great place for this – affiliate links added for convenience). Either way, you can turn these into adorable dried orange slice reindeer! Simply add felt and pom poms. Don’t have any? Add cardboard antlers, and paint on the rest or use paper cut outs!

15. Santa Paper Lanterns with free printable

Back to good ol’ Santa! This is a great paper craft that builds on the popular “paper lantern”. Paper lanterns are SO EASY to make and great for preschoolers to practice their “straight line” cutting skills. Then embellish with some fabulous santa features and hey presto, you have yourself a cute Paper Santa Lantern Christmas Decoration! This even comes with a free Santa printable. Woohoo.

16. Super Simple Origami Reindeer

You can start children on origami MUCH younger than you think. Especially when working together. It is wonderful for practicing spacial awareness and talking about symmetry. This lovely little origami reindeer is a great place to get started.

17. Coffee Filter Christmas Tree Garland or Ornaments

We love working with simple materials. Next craft in our online advent calendar, is this coffee filter Christmas Tree Garland. I say it is for preschoolers, but I think kids of all ages will enjoy this one. Grab coffee filters, some paints (watercolours are great), sticks and other bits and bobs to decorae tour mini trees and make this cute Christmas garland or mobile.

18. Salt Dough Votive

Votives are always a popular craft thist ime of year. You can make votives for “real” tealights or electric tealights, whatever you feel more comfortable with. Using salt dough as a base, makes super easy and eco friendly to make. These Salt Dough Votives also make great gifts for relatives. We decorated them with pony beads, but you can also paint them or decorate with nature items or things like anis stars.

19. Coffee Filter Snowflakes for Toddlers

Next in our holiday celebrations.. are coffee filer snowflakes. It is mesmerizing to watch the colours mingle and mix on the coffee filters. Then ones dry, your toddler or preschooler can practice their cutting skills again! A lovely craft that will last you through the rest of the winter months too!

20. Simple Pipecleaner & Bead Wreath Ornaments

As we approach the last days of Christmas Advent period, we have another simple ornament for you – a beaded pipecleaner wreath. Once again, these are great for fine motor skills and concetration. Maybe put on a Christmas Story to listen too, whilst making these!

Don’t have pipecleaners or beads, then have a go at these Edible Christmas Ornaments. Who doesn’t love to bake cookies this time of year!

21. Polar Bear Origami

Our crafty advent calendar for preschoolers is back for some more origami! This time let’s make some simple Polar Bear Origami Faces! You can glue these to the front of a card to make holiday cards or add them to your gift wrap. So cute!

22. Free Emotions Snowman Printable Coloring Page

Now we all know that Christmas time, though fabulous, can also be a little overwhelming! And sometimes our toddlers or preschoolers don’t quite know how to process or even express their emotions. There is excitement, there is nervousness (who IS Santa? Will Santa think I am nice?), there may be disappointment (the wrong gift!) or just TOO MUCH family… whatever is happening this “Emotions Snowman Printable” is a great way to discuss feelings and that all feelings are valid!

This is a free printable. Don’t have a printer.. read the article and maybe great your own (just draw circle shapes with a cup and create your own snowman faces) or if this isn’t your cup of tea – here is a completely alternative snowman activity.

We also have an Emotions Santa Paper Toy, but it is a little harder to assemble.

23. Cotton Pad Snowman Cards

We are coming close to Christmas Eve now. Energy levels are probably low. So here is a quick and easy snowman art project to make. We used cotton pads for this, but you can just cut paper discs and see what other bits and bobs you have in your art cupboard.

24. Toilet Paper Tube Angel Christmas Tree Toppers

And so we arrive on December 24th. Christmas Eve! We are finishing off our activity advent calendar with a toilet paper roll angel. We love making this as a nod to the nativity scene and because they make great angel tree toppers. If you are all “done” however, grab our free paper angel topper printable and get the kids to colour these in!

And that is the end of our preschool Christmas Countdown calendar! I hope you found lots of fun Christmas surprises to make with the kids and that you have enjoyed this online calendar this festive period.

More Preschool Countdown Activities to consider

As this is a craft website, I have of course focussed on preschooler Christmas crafts! However, here is a list of other super common and popular toddler activities for Christmas:

1. Visit Santa – book this in early as many places get booked up quickly
2. Bake Christmas Cookies (these can be delivered to as a random act of kindness to lonely neighbours or the fire station)
3. Make reindeer food (please please please avoid glitter and keep it natural, as the birds are likely to eat this for you)
4. Try out something new like ice skating
5. Make a gingerbread house (after years of doing this, we find the store bought kits are the easiest to use and then simply buy lots of extra treats, candies and candy canes to make it extra decadent and fun)
6. Go on a Christmas Lights walk or drive – this can be combined with a scavenger hunt or Holiday Lights bingo!
7. Have a Christmas movie night with hot chocolate and holiday treats (we love watching The Grinch or the Polar Express!). This is especially lovely on Christmas Eve, when everyone is simply too excited to sleep!
8. Go caroling/ sing Christmas carols or watch a carol service
9. Read a favourite Christmas book, be sure to include the Christmas stories and lots of elves
10. Donate to the local food bank as another act of kindness or sort through your toys and donate to local charity too

I hope you enjoyed this additional set of fun Advent Calendar Activities and that you have a fantastic time this December! Remember, the holiday season can be a busy busy time. And if things get a little manic, just skip the craft and get out a nice Christmas Picture Book to read together! Or… rope in grandma and grandpa to bake cookies or take the tots out on a Christmas light walk.

That only leaves me to wish you a very Happy and Merry Christmas!

I hope you have a wonderful celebration and see you in time for the New Year Preschool Activities (as always.. we have you covered!!).