Sharla Kostelyk

Joy Sensory Bin

This Joy Sensory Bin is perfect for a bit of sensory play around the holidays. Even though we have been making sensory bins for a very long time now, it never ceases to amaze me how much enjoyment my kids still get out of them. I also am impressed at the different, out-of-the-box ways the kids think of playing when each bin.

I am in love with that picture because Dancing Queen’s face looks so peaceful which shows the power of sensory play with kids who have sensory needs and anxiety.

Making this sensory bin was a two part project. We made the letters for JOY by covering wooden letters with Modge Podge and sprinkling generously with silver glitter. When they were dry, I mixed Modge Podge with water and went over the sprinkles with it to seal them.

I used a blue bin and added fake snow (also called buffalo snow). I used a type that was iridescent because I liked the look of it but regular would work too.

I added white and blue pompoms, holiday shaped mini cookie cutters, white feathers, snowflake confetti in white, blue and silver, and the JOY letters.

Last year for Christmas, I made a Winter Wonderland sensory bin and while the kids loved it and we decided to use the same snow for this one because it was such a hit, I wanted to do something this year to convey a bit more about the real reason for the holidays so that is where the idea for the Joy Sensory Bin came from.

For hundreds of other sensory bin ideas, you can also follow my Sensory Bins board on Pinterest.

Follow Sharla Kostelyk’s board Sensory Bins on Pinterest.

If you are looking for information on making sensory bins, you may be interested in my book.

Join our free 5 part email series Sensory Solutions and Activities and get our Sensory System Behaviours Easy Reference Cards.

Eggnog Snickerdoodles

By Sharla Kostelyk

I was invited to a holiday baking exchange and wanted to bring something that I was pretty sure no one else would bring, so I came up with eggnog snickerdoodles. These are a holiday twist on the classic cookie and they taste and smell delicious!

If you are a fan of eggnog, you are going to love these cookies! And the smell that fills the house as they are baking is as holiday as it gets.

My husband loves eggnog, so he of course was happy to drink what was left after I bought some to make these cookies! I had to be careful to bake these directly after I bought the eggnog so that it wasn’t gone before I got the chance to use it.

Eggnog Snickerdoodles Recipe:

2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup light eggnog, warmed to room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar

for coating:

5 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Mix together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a bowl.

In a different bowl, mix together the melted butter, eggnog (remember to have it at room temperature so that it doesn’t lump up the butter!) and the vanilla. Stir in the sugars.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Don’t over mix.

Cover the cookie dough and refrigerate it for between one and three hours.

Once the dough has chilled, preheat the oven to 350° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or use a stoneware cookie sheet.

Mix together the sugar and spices for the coating in a small bowl.

Make balls with the cookie dough (I used a cookie scoop so that they were all the same size since I was making them for a baking exchange) and roll the balls in the coating before placing them on the baking sheet. I pressed mine down a bit to achieve the shape I wanted to, but it isn’t necessary.

Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes. Cool them on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing.

This recipe makes about 3 dozen eggnog snickerdoodles, depending on the size you make them.

Other Christmas cookies you might enjoy:

Peppermint Bark Oreo Cookies

Christmas Ice Box Cookies

Eggnog Snickerdoodles Recipe

These are a holiday twist on the classic cookie and they taste and smell delicious! If you are a fan of eggnog, you are going to love these cookies! And the smell that fills the house as they are baking is as holiday as it gets.

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. cornstarch
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup melted butter
1/2 cup light eggnog warmed to room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar

for coating:

5 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg

Instructions

Mix together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in a bowl.
In a different bowl, mix together the melted butter, eggnog (remember to have it at room temperature so that it doesn't lump up the butter!) and the vanilla. Stir in the sugars.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Don't over mix.
Cover the cookie dough and refrigerate it for between one and three hours.
Once the dough has chilled, preheat the oven to 350° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or use a stoneware cookie sheet.
Mix together the sugar and spices for the coating in a small bowl.
Make balls with the cookie dough (I used a cookie scoop so that they were all the same size since I was making them for a baking exchange) and roll the balls in the coating before placing them on the baking sheet. I pressed mine down a bit to achieve the shape I wanted to, but it isn't necessary.
Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes. Cool them on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing.
This recipe makes about 3 dozen eggnog snickerdoodles, depending on the size you make them.

Paper Plate Snowglobe Craft

By Sharla Kostelyk

There is just something about a white paper plate that demands to be painted! This simple paper plate snowglobe craft is a great winter or holiday activity for kids.

Paper Plate Snowglobe:

This craft is easy to set up and uses very familiar materials. Depending on how you set this up, this activity can be adapted for toddlers and preschoolers or made more challenging for older kids.

Materials needed:

paper plates
paint
permanent markers
craft glue
mini white pompoms

To set this paper plate craft up, lay out the materials and set up something for the paint. I usually cover a plate with tin foil to put the paint on. You can use that method or a paint tray.

Squeeze the paint onto the tray or plater and paint the paper plates a light blue. We didn’t have light blue paint, so we mixed regular blue paint with white paint.

Next, paint the area of snow at the bottom in white paint. Some of my kids also chose to add a few dots of snow here and there as well while they were working with the white paint. Allow the paint to dry.

Now that the general snowglobe outline has been created, the kids are free to create whatever scene they want inside. I didn’t give my kids instructions, but they all made essentially the same picture. I was thinking that some of them might create a nature scene or village scene, but they each chose a snowman and trees. One did it that way first and the others thought it looked good, so they followed the lead!

Paper Plate Snowglobe For this step, you can use either paint or permanent markers. We chose to use both. The kids used paint for the larger things such as the snowman shape and trees. They then added the finer details such as the snowman face, arms and buttons using the permanent markers.

To finish off, glue tiny white pompoms to simulate the snow in the snowglobe. We found that it worked best to put a dab of glue on the paper plate rather than on the pompom. Allow the glue to dry and your paper plate snowglobe is complete!

I just need to add a note here: I’m a bit of a spelling nerd and I do realize that snow globe is two words, but it turns out that most people spell it as one word when they are typing it into a search engine. For the purpose of people being able to find it, I am spelling it snowglobe!

We certainly do like our paper plate crafts around here. Here is another that we did recently.

Melted Snowman Sensory Bottle

Christmas Counting I-Spy Discovery Bottle

By Sharla Kostelyk

This discovery bottle holds so many possibilities. It is both an I-spy game and a tool to help kids learn their numbers, all within a Christmas sensory bottle.

Materials needed:

epsom salt
small holiday shaped items – small holiday buttons work well
jingle bells (no sound from them though because they fill up with the epsom salt)
empty water bottle (I used a Voss water bottle because I like the look of them)
optional: clear or silver glitter

Start pouring some epsom salt into an empty water bottle, pausing here and there to throw in a few of your small items. Leave some space in the bottle so that it can be shaken and moved to find the items more easily.

In my Christmas sensory bottle, I put:

1 Christmas tree
2 gingerbread men
3 penguins with Santa hats
4 mittens (2 green, 2 blue)
5 snowmen
6 stars
7 snowflakes
8 red jingle bells
9 green jingle bells
10 mini Christmas lights

It’s amazing how much will fit in there!

I didn’t secure the lid of my Christmas sensory bottle because my kids are older and I thought we may need to open it again but for younger kids, I suggest securing the lid to the bottle once it’s filled. You can do this by using a hot glue gun.

It probably goes without saying, but since the discovery bottle contains small items, supervision of younger children is required even if you have secured the lid.

Next, write or type up a list of the items in the bottle so that the kids can reference it when they are seeking. The reason I chose to add groupings of items is so that kids could practise counting as they tried to find items.

If you are looking for other holiday sensory ideas, you may want to check out our Winter Wonderland Sensory Bin.

Join our free 5 part email series Sensory Solutions and Activities and get our Sensory System Behaviours Easy Reference Cards.

Family Time Capsule Ornament

By Sharla Kostelyk

Capture your family’s memories from the year into a keepsake that can be opened in future years. Create a time capsule ornament that can be hung on your Christmas tree!

Of all the holiday projects we’ve ever made, this one is my favourite. I think it’s going to be wonderful to open it in five or ten years and reminisce.These time capsule ornaments are really simple to make and could become an annual tradition at our house. They would also be cute to make to commemorate special milestones such as weddings, adoptions or births and can be made as a memorial ornament as well.

Materials needed:

holiday scrapbook paper
pen
scissors or paper cutter
plastic or glass fillable ornament
permanent paint pen in silver or gold
ribbon

For the paper, you can choose some holiday patterned paper or you can go with a colour scheme like metallics with black or blues with silver. I asked my kids for their favourite memories from the year and they each gave several, but then Snuggle Puppy mentioned that he’d like to add his appendix surgery. He said, “It’s not exactly a good memory, but it was kind of a big thing that happened.” I had to agree with him that perhaps we should also include some of the big events of the year so that when we look back, we have a complete time capsule of memories.

I found it surprising what the kids remembered from the year. They of course had things such as our big road trip and camping, but they also had memories of smaller things I would have thought they had forgotten. Our oldest of course said that getting the keys to his own place was his top moment of the year!

Time Capsule Ornament Instructions:

1. Cut the decorative paper into thin strips. These do not need to be exactly the same size.
2. Have your family members write their memories of the year on the papers. Younger children can dictate their memories to you. You can have each person write several memories. Each person can also sign the ones they wrote to help keep track of whose was whose when opened in the future.
3. Remove the top of the refillable ornament. Roll each of the strips of paper with written memories up and drop them into the ball. When you have added all the rolled up strips of paper, replace the top on the ornament.
4. Using the metallic paint pen, write the year on the ornament.
5. Loop a ribbon through the top and hang it on the tree.

These family time capsule ornaments are so simple to create but carry such meaning. They make a lovely gift for grandparents as well.

Watch the video below to see us creating another one of our annual time capsule ornaments.

To make a memorial ornament, instead of writing the year on the ornament with the permanent paint pen, write the person’s name on the ornament. Fill the ornament with paper slips of memories and character traits of your loved one.

Another idea is to create a special memento of a vacation by writing the location of the vacation with the paint pen and then including moments from the trip on the papers inside. This is so much more personal than buying an ornament for your tree on the trip.

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Check out some of our other Christmas crafts:

Nativity Chalk Silhouette

Dish Brush Christmas Tree Painting with Fingerprint Ornaments

Washi Tape Mitten Ornaments

The Best Christmas Cookies

By Sharla Kostelyk

There is just something about the holidays that evokes in me the urge to bake. The best Christmas cookies in my opinion are both those that are traditional and give a nostalgic taste of the season and those that are new and delicious. This collection includes both types. Let the holiday baking begin!

The Best Christmas Cookies