When I was growing up, my fondest memories of holiday preparations was making our Rice Krispie houses. We made them for as long as I can remember. There were one or two years when we tried making gingerbread houses but they were flops. One year, our icing wasn’t right and the pieces of the house wouldn’t stick together. Another, the gingerbread broke into tiny pieces when we were trying to assemble it so by the time I had my own family, I didn’t even attempt gingerbread and stuck with what I knew would work.
Rice Krispie houses are easy to make and as an added bonus, as long as you use gluten free Rice Krispies, you can make these gluten free. Some years, we make one large house while other years, each of the kids make their own. One year for Miss Optimism’s December birthday, all the party guests made their own candy house to take home.
To begin, cover a cardboard base with tin foil. Next, make a batch of Rice Krispie square base. (To make these six houses, I had to make 2 batches.)
Melt 1/2 cup butter or margarine with 5 1/2 cups mini marshmallows. You can do this in the microwave or on the stovetop. Stir in 6 cups of Rice Krispies cereal (regular or gluten free). While the mixture is still warm, drop it onto the prepared cardboard bases.
Have the kids shape into the desired shape. This can be the shape of a house or an igloo or a snowman or anything else their imagination comes up with. We usually also shape a small amount of the Rice Krispie mixture into a tree for the yard.
Next, cover the structure and the base with white icing. You can use store bought icing or make your own. We made a simple butter, icing sugar and milk icing. We make a small amount of green icing for the trees.
Next comes the really fun part…decorating the houses with candy. There are no rules or instructions for this part. I like to buy the mint chocolate square wafers because they make good shingles for the roof or shutters or doors. I try to provide an assortment of candies so that they can create whatever they want. (two mini candy canes and a chocolate mint wafer makes a good Santa sleigh!)
To finish off the cute little houses, sprinkle a little bit of icing sugar on top for the look of snow. And then of course there is the eating! Our kids certainly were happy to have their own candy houses to eat.
What are your Christmas traditions? I love this list of Christmas traditions shared by another family.
You can often find pictures on the back or inside of the card that work well so don’t forget to check there!
It’s fun for the kids to see their 3D circle start to take shape.
Each one is unique because of the different patterns and colours on the greeting cards. 
The second one we tried was a winter snowman scene. One of the things that I most appreciate about the book is that is gives the basic instructions but encourages individual artistic expression. You can see from the pictures below how different each of the kids’ pictures turned out. Some added tobogganers, another added a chair lift and a skier, one of them even has the snowman’s head fallen off beside him!
The one we did today was a present and again, the kids all put their own spin on it. Granola Girl drew hers beside a Christmas tree with other smaller presents. Einstein made striped wrapping paper and Dancing Queen drew a picture of Jesus on hers. Miss Optimism made hers in pretty girly colours!
The art sessions have been such a success that the kids have even asked if they can stay at the table longer and work on their own creations. I was blown away by this one made by Snuggle Puppy without a tutorial or instruction of any kind using many of the techniques we had been learning about in our sessions:
I’m loving our morning art sessions and look forward to this becoming a regular part of our homeschooling routine. The kids are finding it relaxing and are learning a lot about different techniques and methods. They are also gaining confidence as they learn.
The kids really appreciated the creativity of being able to decorate this tree without any instruction or limitations. I would say that it held the attention of my girls a bit better than my boys and I’m not sure if that is because of the activity itself or just the moods on the day it took place. My boys generally enjoy craft activities as much as my girls do. It was a good holiday sensory activity for all the kids and involved both fine motor and to some extent, gross motor as well.
This was a hands-on and easy way to begin to decorate 
String a jingle bell onto a piece of ribbon or raffia and place a knot above a small loop. Place the knot beneath the wire at the dip in the heart and attach it to the ornament by knotting again just above the wire. Create a loop to hang the ornament with and put one last knot at the top.
If you are interested in more Christmas crafts or activities, you may be interested in following my 