Who are the mightiest Christmas Crafters in the UK? With this activity plan and its attached #TNLxmasactivitycomp competition, we are about to find out!

Follow this activity plan to make your own Christmas Reindeer, Snowman or Penguin with the children in your setting. Not only is it great fun, but good for the development of their motor skills and exploring their creativity.

This is no simple activity plan, however, because this plan can win the children in your setting a unique experience!

To enter, share with us ANY of your christmas crafts from this year, whether it involves drawing, glueing, sticking, cutting, or any amount of toilet roll tubes, and post it on Instagram with the hashtags #TNLxmasactivitycomp & #thatnurserylife and a caption telling us why your setting should win our fabulous ZOOLAB prize.

If you haven’t already got any Christmas crafting photos to use yet then act quick and follow this activity plan to make a Reindeer, Snowman or Penguin with your children!

The winning setting as chosen by That Nursery Life will win 45 Minute Session with our partners ZooLab! ZooLab are the UK’s leading provider of ethical Early Years animal encounters via digital and handling sessions.

For more than 20 years ZooLab has been amazing, informing and inspiring people both young and old with their unique educational experiences and hands-on animal encounters! From Early Years Education to animal therapy, they use their Digital Sessions and Handling Sessions to provide people with ethical animal encounters and spark a love for the natural world.

See the bottom of this page for T&C’s.

Now, on to the activity. Are you ready to get sticking?!

What you need:

• Toilet roll tubes
• Buttons
• White paint
• Black paint
• Brown and orange pipe cleaners
• For the eyes: Googly eyes, white and black paint, or a sticker.
• Red, brown and black pompoms
• Black marker pen
• Red card or foam
• Orange card
• Double-sided tape
• Winter scene decorations, e.g. white card, cotton wool, Christmas lights, glitter, etc..

Preparing the activity:

1. Collect the toilet roll tubes – it might help to send a note home with children, asking parents to send in cardboard toilet roll tubes
2. Cut the red card or foam into strips lengthways along an A4 sheet, about 1cm wide
3. Cut the orange card into carrot shapes (soft-cornered triangles) and beak shapes (sharp-cornered triangles)
4. Depending on how much time you have, this activity can be split over one or two sessions. Session one could be painting the toilet roll tubes for the children’s chosen characters and then leaving them to dry before session two. If this is not feasible, however, you can paint the tubes before the activity, just make sure you do a few of each design so everyone can have the character they want!

Doing the activity:

Allow the children to pick which character they would like to make and help them collect the items they need.

Snowman:

1. Paint the toilet roll with white paint and let dry
2. Wrap a strip of glitter card around, about halfway down the roll, at an angle so the ends hang down like a scarf. Use double-sided tape to secure it
3. Draw some coal buttons underneath the scarf with the marker
4. Stick on a carrot nose and draw coal eyes and a mouth
5. *Optional extra* make holes in the sides of the snowman and push pipe cleaners through to create arms

Rudolph:

1. Paint a toilet roll tube brown and let dry.
2. Make two holes at either side of the top of the toilet roll tube. Push three brown pipe cleaners through, so they come out either side of the toilet roll. Arrange to resemble antlers
3. Stick two googly eyes on the front of the tube, with a red pompom underneath for Rudolph’s nose. If you don’t have googly eyes in your setting, you can again draw them on, or try stickers!
4. Stick another pompom on the back of the toilet roll tube, at the bottom, for Rudolph’s tail

Penguin:

1. Paint a toilet roll tube black, except for an oval shape, starting about halfway down the tube, and let dry.
2. Paint the oval with white paint and let dry.
3. Stick two googly eyes on the front of the toilet roll, above the white oval, with an orange break stuck underneath If you don’t have googly eyes in your setting, you can always draw them on, or try stickers!
4. Fold a yellow pipe cleaner into the shape of two penguin feet (three short toes on each foot) and stick to the bottom of the pipe cleaner so the toes stick out

Adapting the Activity:

As this plan doesn’t have to focus on Christmas, there will be no problem using it as a non-Christmas specific, winter activity. Simply remove the red nose from Rudolph and they can simply be a reindeer, or remove the reindeer completely and just focus on penguins, snowmen or any other winter characters you can come up with!

Tracking the activity:

30-50 months

Expressive arts and design: Exploring and using media and materials; “Uses various construction materials.”

40-60+ months

Expressive arts and design: Exploring and using media and materials; “Manipulates materials to achieve a planned effect.”

Entering the competition:

Follow the instructions above, or T&C’s below, to share your winter crafting! Any christmassy creativity that you have been doing with the children you work with qualifies, be it the reindeer, penguins or snowmen in this activity plan, or your own ideas and creations. We want to see what you’ve got!

Terms and Conditions of the Competition

1.To enter, share with us ANY of your christmas crafts from this year, whether it involves drawing, gluing, sticking, cutting, or any amount of toilet roll tubes, and post it on Instagram with the hashtags #TNLxmasactivitycomp & #thatnurserylife and a caption telling us why your setting should win our fabulous ZOOLAB prize.

2.Entry is limited to one per person.

3.Final competition entry must be by 12:00pm UK time on January 6th 2021

4.Prizes are for your setting as an opportunity for the children in your setting to have an educational animal experience- no private parties or home use.

5.ZooLabUK have the final discretion as to the type of Session offered, format and dates. They provide both Digital Sessions and Handling Sessions. The one that is offered will depend on the location of your setting, availability, your own visitor and setting policies, and of course external factors such as any Covid19 limitations that remain in place.

6.The winner will be selected and notified on or after January 8th 2021. TNL’s decision of winner will be final.

7.The competition winner must be able to make use of the prize in 2021.

8.Any attempts to influence, pressure or harass those involved in the running of the competition, or abuse of other TNL social media users, will lead to automatic disqualification.

9.Competition winners will only be selected from entries by people who are not related to or friends associates of TNL staff.