Seasonal Activities
What to do when it is pouring, freezing, boiling, or the holidays have four days left and everyone has run out of ideas.
Activities
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Kindergarten Readiness Checklist: 30 Skills Teachers Actually Look For (Free Printable)
A teacher-realistic kindergarten readiness checklist with 30 practical skills — from buttoning coats to sharing crayons — plus a free printable to track progress together.
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20 Easy Thanksgiving Crafts for Kids (Turkey Approved)
Looking for thanksgiving crafts for kids that go beyond the same old handprint turkey? These 20 easy Thanksgiving crafts use things you already have at home — paper plates, toilet rolls, flour, dried beans — and every idea lists the age, the time, and the mess level up front.
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25 Easy Christmas Crafts for Kids (With Free Templates)
Looking for christmas crafts for kids that don't require a craft-store run, a glitter cleanup operation, or a screen to keep anyone busy? You've come to the right place. These 25 easy Christmas crafts use things you already have at home.
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25 Not-So-Spooky Halloween Crafts for Kids
Looking for halloween crafts for kids that keep the fun without the frights? These 25 not-so-spooky Halloween crafts use things you already own — paper plates, toilet rolls, flour, crayons — and every idea lists the age, the time, and the mess level up front, so you can pick one in seconds.
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Popsicle Stick Christmas Trees
Three sticks, a triangle, and as much decorating as they have patience for.
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Paper Plate Christmas Wreath
Cut the middle out of a paper plate and you have a wreath that takes any decoration you like.
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Handprint Reindeer Cards
A hand, upside down, is a reindeer. Nobody sees it until you show them.
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Salt Dough Christmas Ornaments
Flour, salt and water become something you hang on the tree every year after.
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Five Ways to Decorate an Egg With No Dye
Stickers, felt tips, wool, tissue paper and tape. All five work on a hard-boiled egg and none of them stain anything.
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Grow Hair on an Eggshell
Half an eggshell, a face drawn on, cotton wool and cress seeds. In a week it has green hair you can eat.
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A Post Box for Kind Notes
A cereal box with a slot cut in it. Everyone posts a note about somebody else, and you read them out at dinner.
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Print Hearts With a Cardboard Tube
Squash a kitchen roll tube into a heart shape and use it as a stamp. One tube makes forty hearts.
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Draw Round Their Hand and Keep It
One sheet, once a year: their hand, their height, and three things they can do now that they could not last year.
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A Countdown Chain
One paper loop per day, torn off each morning. It makes waiting visible, which is what small children need.
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Real Kitchen Jobs a Small Child Can Actually Do
Washing, tearing, stirring and sprinkling. Eight jobs that are genuinely useful on a busy cooking day.
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Handprint Turkeys for the Table
Draw round their hand, turn it into a turkey, write a name on it. Everyone gets one at their place.
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Count the Pumpkin Seeds
Wash and dry the seeds from your pumpkin, then turn them into a counting game that lasts all week.
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Spooky Shadow Puppets
Cut a bat and a cat from card, tape them to straws, and put on a show against the wall with a torch.
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Monster Feet Painting
Paint the bottom of their feet and walk them down a roll of paper. Messy, hilarious, and over in ten minutes.
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Weave a Spider Web
Snip notches round a paper plate, wind wool across it, and you have a web. Good threading practice hiding inside a Halloween craft.
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The Shape of a Rainy Day
A whole day indoors needs a shape, not a list. Energy first, then absorbing, then quiet, then food — repeated.
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The Hour After School Is Always the Hardest
A child who held it together all day falls apart the moment they see you. Food first, questions much later.
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The First Cold Morning
A seasonal story about the morning you can suddenly see your own breath.
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Practising the Bits That Actually Worry Them
Not the alphabet — the lunchbox, the buttons, the shoes and finding the toilet. The things that decide whether a first week goes well.
Browse seasonal activities
Seasons change what is possible more than anything else. In July you want a reason to be outside and slightly wet; in January you want something that works in a small room without breaking anything.
These pages follow the year — the weather, the school holidays and the handful of celebrations most families mark — so the ideas suit the week you are actually in.
What you'll find here
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Rainy days
Indoor activities with enough going on to survive a whole afternoon, including a few that use up energy without needing a garden.
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Summer and outdoors
Water play, garden science and messy things that are much easier to clear up when they happen outside.
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Holidays and celebrations
Making, decorating and giving — the kind of thing that fills an afternoon and produces something worth keeping.
Bookmark the season you are in — these pages are updated as the year moves rather than replaced.