Easy-to-do Unique Winter Craft Ideas for Kids (2020 Edition)

The child cuts out the details Christmas tree greeting card. Handmade. Project of children's creativity, handicrafts, crafts for kids.

By Stephanie Jarrett, Everything Arlington

One of my favorite ways to pass time on a cold winter day with my kiddos when they were young was to make simple winter kids crafts with them. Sometimes these winter crafts required elaborate instructions from Pinterest and a special trip to the craft store for pricey supplies. Other times, our winter crafts for kids just required a trip through the house to collect markers, crayons, glue and other typical arts & crafts staples. My girls and I had so much fun bonding over our cute winter kids crafts creations. And they learned valuable skills, too (such as tracing and cutting) during otherwise typical crafting sessions.

My girls are older now, and when school is in session, we don’t always have the time we once did to create cute winter crafts together. However, we still keep a fully-stocked closet with art supplies in the house and we do still love to make crafts on chilly winter break or weekend mornings. I’ve laid out a few of our favorite winter kids crafts below that don’t require many items you wouldn’t normally have laying around the house.

1. Snow Owl

Send your kiddos outside to forage for pinecones of various sizes.
Grab some cotton balls and stretch them apart. Use school glue to drizzle over the pinecones and attach the fluffed cotton to the pinecones with glue.
Cut an orange beak from construction paper and affix it to the front of the pinecone.
Attach googly eyes just above the beak.
Repeat until you’ve made an entire snow-owl family.

2. Toilet Paper Roll Snowman

Grab the cardboard from a toilet paper roll that’s otherwise bound for the recycling bin. White ones work best, although you could cover a brown one with white construction paper.
Cut a scarf of any color out of construction paper or get a small length of ribbon and tie or glue it around the center of the tube.
Create a hat for the snowman. We made a black top hat from black construction paper. Glue toward the top of the snowman.
Take a market and draw the snowman’s eyes, nose, mouth and buttons on this jacket.
Repeat until you’ve made as many snowmen as you’d like.

3. Dancing Polar Bear

Grab several sheets of heavy-duty white paper. We used index cards blank on both sizes for our polar bears.
Cut out two large circles, one slightly bigger than the other. Use the bottom of a clean cup from your kitchen to help draw the circles.
Cut out the circles and glue them together, with the smaller circle at the top of the larger circle. These will act as the bear’s head and body.
On the top circle, which will be the bear’s head, draw a face. You can use googly eyes and a pompom for the nose, if you have one, or simply draw the face with crayon or marker. Don’t forget to draw or cut out and attach ears to the bear!
At the bottom of the large circle, cut two holes side by side, large enough for a child to stick her fingers through.
Your bear is ready to dance! Have your child stick her fingers through the bottom holes at act as the bear’s legs! Have her tap and move her fingers so the bear dances.
Repeat to create a family of dancing polar bears!

4. Footprint Penguin

Grab a white piece of paper or a white canvas.
Have your child wash their feet.
Paint your child’s foot like a penguin. Paint a white elongated circle in the middle of his foot (like a penguin’s belly) and then paint the rest of the foot black.
Press child’s foot firmly onto the paper or canvas and let it dry.
Once the footprint is dry, create your penguin! The heel of your child’s foot is the head of the penguin. You can put a scarf around his neck, add eyes and an orange beak. Add flippers or fins to the side of his body. Let your child paint a background for the penguin.
Date your creation so you remember the age at which your kiddo’s foot was that “big”!

5. Handprint Reindeer

Grab several sheets of brown construction paper.
Have your child trace each of her hands onto the construction paper and carefully cut them out.
Cut a reindeer face from an additional sheet of construction paper.
On the face, draw eyes, a nose and a mouth. Use googly eyes if you have them. You can also use a pompom for a nose (black or red) if you have one on hand.
Affix your child’s hands to the top of the reindeer’s head to act as antlers.
Let your child decorate the antlers however she chooses. Maybe she wants to glue sequins or pompoms to them, or color them with various colors.
Repeat until you make a whole family of reindeer. Use handprints from each family member.

6. Timberwolf Spoon Puppet

Take an old wooden spoon and have your child paint it white and let the spoon dry.
Find googly eyes and a pompom for the wolf’s eyes and nose or cut eyes and a nose from black construction paper and affix them to the ladle part of the spoon.
Cut two small ears from white felt and glue those to the top of the spoon using hot glue.
Draw a mouth with black permanent marker.
Add a string or bow underneath the face on the handle of the spoon to act as a collar if you want. Feel free to give the wolf a name and affix the nametag to the collar.

These crafts should allow your kiddos to create their own winter wonderland of colorful creatures and keep them engaged and excited about reading during these chilly winter months. Have fun!