KSCC: Holiday Kids Crafts

First School and Dltk-Kids are my favourite place for kids crafts. They have tons of amazing print-out pre-school activities (secular and non). All free to download, print & keep your kids occupied on a rainy day! The dinosaurs are a favourite in this house. I have the entire site scrap-booked*, so I can still visit it if our over-the-air internet goes down in a wind-storm.

(*See KSCC: Saving Patterns, for information on how to save entire websites)

Doing something special, even for silly holidays (like Inernational Cookie Day) is really fun with the kids.

Of course we've got the major holidays too, and being Canadian, Thanksgiving is this weekend. We've made a classic hand-print turkey for the table, and I found these neat Waxed Leaf and Turkey Napkin Holder.

Waxed Leafs
(link above - use your own best judgment whether your kids are ready for this craft)

This is a good craft for kids if you do it with them, and takes steps to make sure you keep the wax safe.

Heat up the wax in a double boiler, then pour into a small can nestled in a larger can full of hot water. This will keep the wax warm and liquid but your little ones away from the heat (unless they knock it over).

Going outside to collect leaves is the best part for littlest guys to participate in. Once you've got some nice fall leaves, bring them in, you're dipping them in the hot wax then laying them out on a piece of wax paper. We collected some really nice colourful leaves, as well as some brown ones to make a really varied pile of leaves.

I used about 8 tea lights instead of buying paraffin, paraffin would have given me a clear wax coat (we have a few opaque blobby bits) but I don't usually keep it in the house. I also added a few drops of pumpkin smells from one of those oil/tea light scent diffusers.

I really like this craft, added a lot of colour to the table with out buying a bag of plastic leaves, and much cleaner then just leaves off the ground from outside. Melting wax is also a great way to re-make stubby crayons and make candles.