Terri Thompson

35+ China Activities for Kids

January 9, 2018 By Terri Thompson

We’ve always found it valuable to learn about other cultures.

I love it and my girls love it. They’re learning about the different corners of the world. They see people’s differences and celebrate them.

We chose China this time because Chinese New Year was happening soon (today actually), but an exploration of another country can happen at anytime. Choose two or three activities from this list. Find a couple of books at your library (or Internet resources). And then, have fun learning about another country together. It’s an incredibly valuable experience.

You can start with these fun China activities for kids.

Over 35 crafts, games, learning activities, cooking activities, and more China activities for kids suitable for preschool, kindergarten, and elementary kids

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for more details.

Here are over 35 fun China activities for kids including crafts, food, books and art projects. It’s so much fun learning about a different culture together.

Celebrate Chinese New Year

1. Make round folding fans for Chinese New Year with Naturally Educational.

2. Join in at Marie’s Pastiche and find out the top 10 things to do for Chinese New Year.

3. Make Chinese New Year Dragon puppets with Red Ted Art.

4. Make Chinese New Year Dragons from paper loop chains with Naturally Educational.

5. Make stunning Chinese New Year lanterns with Relentlessly Fun Deceptively Educational.

6. Make red envelopes for Chinese New Year with Sun Scholars.

7. Enjoy a Chinese tea ceremony and read book about Chinese New Year with Little Wonders’ Days.

8. Make Chinese rattle-drums with Creative Family Fun.

9. Make a Chinese zodiac poster with KidWorldCitizen.

10. This year will be the Year of the Horse. Learn to write the Chinese character for horse and turn it into a beautiful piece of art with Artchoo.

Learn About the Animals of China

11. Watch a Panda Cam at Explore.org

12. Make a Giant Panda lapbook at Homeschool Share.

13. Read one of these books about pandas at Fantastic Fun and Learning.

14. Make paper plate panda masks with Creative Family Fun.

15. Make shaving cream marbled tigers at Play Create Explore.

16. Make paper plate tiger masks with Creative Family Fun.

Cook a Chinese Meal

17. Make Peanut Sauce and Rice Noodles with Inner Child Food.

18. Make Honey Sesame Chicken with Lil’ Luna.

19. Make Chinese almond cookies with Table for Two.

20. Make vegetarian dumplings with Spoonful.

21. Make Chicken Lo Mein with Rasa Malaysia

Create Art or Make a Craft

22. Make cherry blossom folding fans with In the Playroom.

23. Decorate with Chinese lantern fairy lights with Red Ted Art.

24. Make a cultural book about China with Kids Activities Blog.

25. Make Chinese dragon paintings with Use Your Coloured Pencils.

26. Make a simple kite craft with Creative Family Fun.

27. Make a paint and paste Chinese Dragon Craft with No Time For Flashcards.

28. Create Chinese-style scroll painting with Use Your Coloured Pencils.

29. Learn to draw Chinese lanterns with Art Projects for Kids.

30. Learn about Chinese characters while exploring the art of printmaking with Creative Family Fun.

31. Make a bamboo scroll from craft sticks with Marie’s Pastiche.

32. Make cupcake liner fortune cookies with JDaniel4’s Mom.

33. Make straw-painted paper lanterns with Creative Family Fun.

34. Make a Chinese gong with KidWorldCitizen.

Read a Book About China

35. Choose from 14 books about the Chinese New Year at Gift of Curiosity.

36. Read one of these 10 books about China at No Time For Flashcards.

37. Read one of these Chinese Folktales for Kids at What Do We Do All Day?

Have fun learning with these China activities for kids!

Fun Hundred Chart Games and Activities

January 5, 2018 By Terri Thompson

If you’ve got a child in elementary school, chances are you’ve seen a hundred chart.

Lots and lots of hundred charts.

Hundred charts are so useful, and they’re also A LOT of fun.

Check out all of these awesome Hundred Chart Games and Activities. You’ll love them and your kids will have lots of fun learning!

Learn and play with one of these 12 Fun Hundred Chart Games and Activities. The ideas are varied from gross motor to quiet time activities.

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for more details.

What is a hundred chart and why do we use it? This post offers a great explanation about why hundred charts are such great learning tools.

Fun Hundred Chart Games

Guess the number with this simple Hundred Chart Hidden Number Game. (And grab a printable hundred chart here too!)

Can you put a hundred chart back together? Try this fun puzzle game, Wacky Mixed Up Hundred Chart.

Take it outside and play with a huge Driveway Hundred Chart. Creative Family Fun shows you how to make one and some fun ways to play.

Fill in the missing numbers with this fun hundred chart puzzle at Creative Family Fun. This is such a fun idea!

Make a big, hands-on sticky hundred chart from Coffee Cups and Crayons and go on a scavenger hunt to find the missing numbers.

Create some colorful Hundred Chart Puzzles like these from Playdough to Plato. This is such a fun and simple game to have on hand.

Combine math with art when you create 100 colors to make a colorful hundred chart from NurtureStore.

Uncover a missing letter in your hundred chart. Find these printable Mystery Letter Hundred Chart printables at This Reading Mama. They’re a fun quiet time activity you can take anywhere.

Turn a hundred piece puzzle into a hundred chart with this fun idea from Miss Giraffe’s Classroom. Check out the entire post for several more fun hundred chart activities.

Make a hundred chart out of sticky notes. Check out Reading Confetti for inspiration.

Turn your hundred chart into a game of Battleship with this fun idea from 123Homeschool4Me. Fun!

Take colorful craft sticks and turn them into a fun Rainbow Math Hundred Chart from The OT Toolbox.

Which of these fun hundred chart games and activities do you want to try with your kids?

Learn and play with one of these 12 Fun Hundred Chart Games and Activities. The ideas are varied from gross motor to quiet time activities. #math #hundredchart #BetterThanHomework

Monochromatic Collage Valentine’s Day Art

January 2, 2018 By Terri Thompson

I love art. I love doing it, I love seeing it, and I love thinking about it.

And, that’s how this monochromatic collage project came about.

It all started when I was browsing Pinterest and stumbled across this blog post for cardboard self-portraits.

My mind started thinking two things: first, what an amazing project it was, and second, what else could we do with a similar method.

After mulling it over in my head a few days, I latched on to the idea of a monochromatic collage.

So, the other day after school, my girls came home to a table full of supplies and we had some fun creating a Monochromatic Collage Valentine’s Day Art Project.

Use recycled materials to make a fun Monochromatic Collage Valentine's Day art project. Make art using texture to create a stunning single color project. #ValentinesDay #kidsart #CreativeFamilyFun

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for more details.

How to set up your art project

I looked through my craft supplies and pulled a variety of things that would provide texture and also would be able to be painted.

I found squares of heavy cardboard (cut from a packing box) to use for our canvas.

And, I tore out the middle of corrugated cardboard, so we could use the rippled part.

I also found craft sticks and a pile of craft foam that hadn’t seen the light of day in a good long while.

I grabbed glue, scissors, paint brushes, and pink and red paint, and spread them out on the table.

Now all that I needed were the artists.

Make your Monochromatic Collage

Once the girls got home from school, they immediately started examining the art table. (They love to have a project waiting for them when they get home.)

I explained the concept: create a collage on your cardboard using the items I had out. Once the glue dries, paint over the whole thing with your choice of paint color.

The results were amazing.

I had one daughter come up with a deliberate plan, the A’s, and set out to create it.

The other had a more organic process and just made it up as she went along.

Once the glue was dry enough to not smear all over our collages when we painted, the girls painted over their project with a single color.

This was such a fun and open-ended art project.

Don’t limit yourself to the supplies I listed, just grab what you have at home.

You only need to think about whether or not you can paint over the supplies you use. That’s it!

It’s time to go create a pretty Monochromatic Collage Valentine’s Day art project.

White Chocolate Pretzels With Printable Gift Tags

December 14, 2017 By Terri Thompson

No matter how many fun Christmas activities we do each year, one thing is constant, we always make Christmas treats together.

My girls love to help out in the kitchen and as they’ve gotten older, they’ve been able to do more and more themselves.

One of their favorite things to make are these White Chocolate Pretzels. They’re so easy and my girls can do much of the work themselves.

Simple White Chocolate Pretzels are a fun homemade gift to make this year. Just package them up pretty and pair them with a printable gift tag.

I’m going to show you how you can make these pretzels and how to turn them into a pretty handmade gift.

I’ve got a set of six printable gift tags for you to use on this or any other gift. Head to the end of this post to download and print your gift tags.

Disclaimer: This post contains Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for more details.

White Chocolate Pretzels Ingredients

(Makes approximately 6 dozen pretzels)
12 oz. white candy melt*
Pretzels
Holiday sprinkles

*Note on white candy melt – My grocery store sells white candy melt in blocks. It’s also called white bark or almond bark. You can also usually find packages of white candy melt in disc form with the cake supplies in many craft and grocery stores.

How to Make White Chocolate Pretzels

Melt your white candy melt according to package directions. Most have microwave directions. I put mine in the microwave for 30 seconds. When you pull it out, it still looks like it is in solid form. It will melt more once you stir. It’s very important that you stir your candy melt after it’s first time in the microwave before deciding to reheat it more. Mine melted completely with a bit of stirring. If you overheat the white candy melt, it can become gritty and unusable.

Use a fork to dip your pretzels in your melted candy coating. The fork will help the extra candy melt drip back into the bowl.

Place your dipped pretzels on wax paper to cool and harden. Sprinkle your pretzels with your choice of sprinkles immediately after you pull them out of the candy melt. You want to sprinkle your pretzels before they start cooling. We would stop and sprinkle after about every five pretzels.

Let the pretzels cool completely before packaging (or eating).

My girls, ages 6 and 8, are able to make these pretzels almost completely by themselves. I will melt the chocolate, then let them take over. They love being able to take ownership over the whole process. I will note that when my girls make these, we get considerably less pretzels out of a batch. They are really generous with the candy coating! I made a batch by myself and ended up with 6-1/2 dozen. Their batch had 3-1/2 dozen!

Package it up with these pretty Christmas gift tags

These white chocolate pretzels are such a great idea for a homemade gift. Fill up a mason jar with pretzels and tie a pretty gift tag around the mouth. It’s so pretty and so easy!

I created a set of simple round labels that look great on a mason jar. Just download and print a set on white card stock. There are six labels on a page.

Download your gift tags here.

Spread the joy! Candy-coated pretzels are too yummy to keep them all yourself.

For even more yummy Christmas treats, check out these fabulous bloggers:

No Roll Easy Kid Friendly Pastry Recipe for Christmas Mince Pies at Rainy Day Mum

How to Make Christmas Cookies at The Creative Pair

Gingerbread Iron Golem Biscuits for Minecraft Fans at The Gingerbread House

Christmas Cookie Gift Jar at Sun Hats and Wellie Boots

How to Make a Simple Festive Ice Cream at Witty Hoots

Gluten-Free Orange Cranberry Dip at Freshly Planted

Hot Chocolate Cookies with Marshmallow Frosting at Kitchen Counter Chronicles

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies at Tales of Beauty for Ashes

Spiral Cookie Lollipops at Teach Me Mommy

Delicious Dairy Free Ginger Spice Cookies at Crafty Kids at Home

Almond Melt-Away Snowball Cookies at Chocolate Mama Loves Vanilla

Salt Dough Candy Cane Ornament

December 4, 2017 By Terri Thompson

Christmas always makes me nostalgic.

I pull out all the ornaments we’ve collected over the years and I hang up the stockings my Mom lovingly cross stitched for everyone in our family.

I set up my Grandmother’s nativity scene.

We read some of the Christmas books I had as a child.

And, I always want to try and recreate some of the Christmas crafts I remembered doing as a child, like this Salt Dough Candy Cane Ornament.

Give your Christmas tree an old-fashioned flair with a Salt Dough Candy Cane Ornament. It's such a fun keepsake ornament your kids will love to make.

Did you ever make these Salt Dough Candy Cane Ornaments as a child?

I know I did, or at least I think I did. It’s one of those crafts that have become so ingrained in my head that I feel like I’ve known about it forever.

Since it’s just not Christmas without a salt dough project (or at least to me it’s not), I added this craft to our activity advent calendar. Now we’ve got a whole batch of these fun candy canes hanging on our tree.

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon Affiliate links. Please see my Disclosure Page for more details.

Have you ever made salt dough before? I just love working with it. It’s easy to make and easy to work with.

Salt Dough Recipe

1 cup salt
1 cup flour
1/2 cup warm water

Mix the salt and the flour together. Next add 1/2 cup of warm water. Mix until combined and a dough forms. The consistency should be similar to play dough.

For the candy canes, divide the dough into two equal parts. Add red food coloring (or red liquid watercolor) to one half of the dough and knead it in until it is as red as you want it to be. I used liquid water colors for ours. Keep the other half natural.

We were able to make 10 salt dough candy canes with one batch of dough.

How to make a Salt Dough Candy Cane Ornament

To make our candy canes, we took a small chunk of white and a small chunk of red dough. The girls rolled each one out until they made equal-sized snakes.

A word of caution: we discovered that if we made our snakes too skinny, they broke when we tried to twist them together.

After they had rolled out their dough, they twisted the two colors together.

We pressed the ends together just a bit so they would stay together. Then, we took the twist and curled one side into a hook.

We had our candy canes!

As you can see, we had all shapes and sized of candy canes. Some average size, some short, and one really big one.

I added them all to a parchment-lined baking sheet and put them in a 250 degree F oven.

It’s hard to predict exactly how long they need to be in the oven, so check them after one hour. Continue to check until your candy canes are hard. Ours took about 2 hours. The thickness of the candy canes, the amount you make, and your type of oven all factor into the amount of time it takes to harden. I always recommend to check them on a regular basis.

Once our candy canes had cooled off, I tied some twine around them so the girls could hang them on the tree.

It was an afternoon filled with Christmas nostalgia.

Even though I was mostly an observer, I’ve still got those candy canes hanging on my tree to remind me of all the fun I had with the girls while making the Salt Dough Candy Cane Ornament of my childhood.

Terri Thompson