It's the most creative time of the year!
Join us as we countdown to December 25th with some of our favorite creative, hands-on activities to do at home. Every day we will feature a new winter-themed activity from the Children's Creativity Museum or howtosmile.org.
We'd love to see what you create! Share your creations with us on our social media using #CreativityKids. Have fun and happy holidays!
Day 1: Homemade Snow
On the First Day of Creativity, let’s get in the winter spirit! It may be sunny outside, but that doesn’t have to stop you from creating your own sensory snow inside! Pack it into snowballs, draw snow art, and find many other ways to create and play on your personal snow day! Check out the awesome “Homemade Snow'' activity by clicking the button below!
Day 2: Crystal Painting
On the Second Day of Creativity, continue the wintery celebration by making your own crystal art. Paint a cool pattern or hidden message with a super salty solution and be amazed by your beautiful crystallized creation when it dries.
Day 3: Tessellation Art Wrapping Paper
On the Third Day of Creativity, have fun mashing up art and math by creating your own tessellation art wrapping paper! Tessellations are a mesmerizing piece of art based on a single repeated pattern. They are fun and relaxing to make, and are a great way to create your own personalized wrapping paper or to give as a gift themselves.
Day 4: Make an Animation
On the Fourth Day of Creativity, create your own winter-themed animation using just a sheet of paper and some household items! Enjoy creating a phenakistoscope-a physical looping animation made up of different images on a spinning disk. Make an animation of a snowman coming to life, your favorite holiday food being eaten up, or anything else you can think of!
Day 5: Frozen Sculptures
On the Fifth Day of Creativity, go on a nature walk and use what you find to create a beautiful frozen sculpture! After creating your sculpture, explore further. What happens when you paint your sculpture? What about if you add hot water? Or combine multiple sculptures together?
Day 6: Ice Cream Science
On the Sixth Day of Creativity, enjoy a different type of ice today…ice cream! In the first activity, create your own instant ice cream by shaking up some salt, ice, and flavored milk-no freezer required! Then, in the second activity, explore what happens when you bake ice cream in an oven. Who said science couldn’t be tasty!
Day 7: Watch and Create!
On the Seventh Day of Creativity, add some creative challenges to your favorite holiday shows and movies to make screen time a little more active! Choose from four different challenge cards- artist, director, inventor, and musician-to add your own ideas and endings to the stories that you love! This is a fun activity for learners and caregivers to do together and can lead to great conversations about screen time at home and digital sustainability.
Day 8: DIY Clay Ornaments
On the Eighth day of Creativity, make an air dry clay ornament or sculpture! Start out by making your own DIY clay, then mold it into a holiday ornament, wintery sculpture, or anything else that inspires you! Note: Clay does not require the use of an oven to dry. Instead plan on allowing a few days to air dry before decorating your creation.
Day 9: Icy Investigations
On the Ninth Day of Creativity, young learners will let their curiosity run wild in this open-ended exploration of ice. What will happen when they add certain materials like salt or sugar to their ice? What if they explore with different tools? How can they make their ice melt the fastest? Encourage learners to be scientists and make observations as they try their own experiments!
Day 10: Spinning Top
On the Tenth Day of Creativity, make and decorate your own holiday-themed spinning top! Start out making your top by experimenting with different materials, different sizes or circles, and adding weight to the edges to see how they affect its spin. Then add your favorite holiday themes and colors to it as decoration. You could even add some paint and use your spinning top as a moving paint brush to create colorful spin art in a container!
Day 11: Pom Pom Keychains
On the Eleventh Day of Creativity, transform some yarn and a keyring into a brand new pom pom keychain! Make one for yourself ? or give them as a gift ? to others! Once you learn the basics, you can create tons of different shapes for your keychain! What will you make?
Day 12: Jar Recipe
On the Twelfth Day of Creativity, relax and enjoy a tasty treat by making a fun and delicious homemade recipe nicely layered into a jar. These recipes make for an awesome personalized gift or a yummy snack to have at home. In the video, Kelsey makes jar recipes for chocolate chip cookies and trail mix, but you can make any type of recipe that you’d like. Soups, cookies, granola, and more! Happy holidays!