Set up this easy Christmas small world play for your kids for a fun Christmas sensory activity that builds language skills, creative thinking and imagination!
Preschools (and older kids) will love this simple Christmas pretend play activity that also incorporates sensory play with the pine needles that feel interesting and smell just like Christmas!
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This small world and sensory play activity is easy to set and sure to be a hit with your kids during the holiday season!
It’s a fun sensory and imaginative play activity that you can easily modify to suit the materials you have on hand. Set this up at home for hours of fun, or set it up in your classroom as a fun sensory break for your kids this holiday season.
Set up an Easy Christmas Small World Activity.
To set up this fun Christmas sensory and small world activity you only need a few items, and you can change them up depending on what you have on hand.
Here’s what we used to make this Christmas gnome imaginative play:
- A large tub – we used an under-bed storage tub.
- Some pine needles, or other natural materials, or even shredded paper will work.
- Some small wooden trees.
- Some pine cones (or other natural materials)
- Some plastic Christmas baubles
- Some Christmas gnomes!
We collected our pine needles from a huge pine tree that is growing near our house. If you are not lucky enough to live near a pine forest, you could ask if you could collect fallen pine needles from anywhere that sells real Christmas trees, or you could use other leaves, or even shredded green paper. A drop of pine essential oil will make it smell just like Christmas even without the pine needles.
Snipping the pine needles off the branches is great fine motor work, but try not to get the pine branch sap on your hands while snipping the pine needles, and be careful not to get any pieces of branch in the tub. The sap is very sticky and we needed eucalyptus oil to get it off our hands.
We added a few wooden trees, some Christmas baubles and some pine cones.
You can add whatever Christmassy accessories you have on hand. Cotton balls would make fabulous snow, tinsel would be fun, and you could also add lots of natural materials like stones, sticks, bark, and more.
Our little wooden gnomes were made by my Dad who is a wood turner, but you an buy blank wooden gnome peg dolls that would be perfect for this pretend play activity. You could use Christmas decorations as your characters (Santa, elves, reindeers would all be great), or build Lego mini figure elves, or use any other figurines you have to live in your Christmas small world!
Our Christmas gnomes had lovely time playing soccer with the baubles, burying each other under the pine needles and going to sleep on the nice soft ‘grass’.
More Christmas Sensory Play Ideas
More Christmas Play and Learning Ideas.
For even more Christmas themed play-based learning activities check out these ideas:
