Welcome to our collection of craft activities with a specific Hallowe'en/autumn or Christmas/winter theme, for children aged 5 to 11. We had so many we decided to give them a section all of their own! There's also lots of Hallowe'en and Christmas food ideas over in our Recipes section.
For different types of activity, see the other sections of our library:
The step-by-step instructions are supplied as PDF files. Click on a link below to download a file.
Note that our activities are aimed at children of primary school age. Some may also be suitable for pre-school children with minor adjustments, but this is at your own discretion as the activities may include elements which are not appropriate for young children such as small parts, hot surfaces or substances that need treating with caution.
Always popular
Woodland folk
Don't the children love collecting leaves and acorns and such like in the autumn? Well here's a way to make good use of them – by creating some cute woodland characters.
Winter houses
You need to plan a little ahead with these winter houses in order to allow time for the paint to dry, but the end results are well worth it. Once you pop an LED tea-light inside to make the windows glow, the houses look really beautiful, especially when grouped together to make a cosy street scene.
Reindeer gingerbread
Everyone loves decorating biscuits, and this clever conversion of the basic gingerbread man shape into a cute reindeer caused great excitement and delight with the children at our club. You can extend the activity by making your own gingerbread men the day before, or you can take the easy option and buy them ready-made.
More autumn and Hallowe'en crafts
If you were a Member you would also be able to access the factsheets for all of these activities:
Acorn babies
Autumn is the season of acorns and conkers, which are irresistible to little people. So if you are looking for a way to use up the bucketfuls that the children have collected, try making these acorn babies. They are so sweet and need very few materials.
Cardboard tube bats
These Hallowe’en decorations are really cheap and simple to make, and can easily be adapted to contain sweets or other small treats.
Coloured rice rangoli
Rangoli are intricate folk designs, typically made on the ground in Indian homes using dyed rice during Diwali. Our rangoli activity also uses rice, but you could use coloured chalks or felt pens to colour in the designs if you prefer.
Diwali peacock
Making this beautiful peacock will involve all the children as well as creating a work of art to help decorate your setting for the Diwali festivities. Suitable for all ages, you only need paper, paint and some feathers to get started.
Eyeball wreaths
This eyeball wreath is so easy to make but looks suitably alarming as a Hallowe'en decoration - especially if you add the optional glow-in-the-dark paint for that spooky aura after dark!
Halloween bread mobiles
Get the children making some decorations for a Halloween party at your club! These hanging decorations are just made out of (the cheapest possible) bread, left to dry and then painted and varnished with PVA. Easy peasy.
Halloween bunting
All children can participate in making this attractive Halloween bunting, no matter what their age or artistic ability. An ideal group activity with a very effective end result.
Pine cone spiders
It's that time of year when all the spiders seem to be coming indoors - so why not make a few more? These ones have a lot of disconcerting googly eyes!
Pompom ghosts
The pompom ghosts are a little bit more fiddly than ordinary pompoms but look great and are worth the extra effort. You could get the children to create a whole bunch of pompom ghosts and then string them together to create Halloween garlands.
Pompom spiders
The pompom spiders are really easy to make, requiring the wool to be wrapped around a small hand rather than a cardboard disk, making them ideal for the younger children. With pipecleaner legs and googly eyes, the children thought these spiders were really cute when we made them at our club.
Pop bottle mini cauldrons
Made from plastic drinks bottles, these cute little cauldrons look great and are perfect either as little goodie bags for a Hallowe'en party, or for the children to take with with them to carry their loot when out trick or treating.
Spooky eyes
These glowing eyes look very impressive in the dark, but are quick and very easy to make, even for the younger children.
Spooky spider lollies
These creepy looking spiders are the perfect activity in the run up to Hallowe’en. They are very easy to make and look quite repulsive! And when you’ve had enough of spiders, you can eat the lolly.
Tin can ghosts
Hang up these tin can ghosts in clusters outside your club, or on your porch at home, where they will waft ghoulishly in the breeze. With the use of a hot glue gun, and the chance of a sharp edge, this craft is more suitable for older primary school children.
Tin can lanterns
This is a more 'risky' activity (involving hammers, nails and sharp materials) that should appeal to the older children — although younger children should be able to manage them too with some support. The lanterns are very satisfying to make, practically free, and are perfect decorations for all sorts of festivals during the dark winter months.
Textured leaf collage
This is a unusual way to take a simple dried leaf collage and make it a little bit more interesting (and challenging) for the children. Pasting a layer of tissue (ie facial tissue, not tissue paper) over the top of your collage gives a surprisingly effective textured finish.
Woodland folk
Don't the children love collecting leaves and acorns and such like at this time of year? Well here's a way to make good use of them – by creating some cute woodland characters.
More winter and Christmas crafts
Activity Advent calendar
Here's an idea to build up the Christmas excitement at your club, but without contributing to the sugar overload of the season: make an Advent calendar with a Christmas-themed activity (rather than a chocolate) for each day.
Christmas fireplace
This Christmas fireplace, complete with stockings, tinsel and cards looks so effective it will really get your setting into the Christmas spirit. Lots of different activities for children of all abilities combine to create a great group artwork.
Christmas garlands
Ever wondered what do to with those polystyrene and cellulose packing beans? Instead of throwing them away, why not convert them into festive Christmas garlands? A very cheap, but very effective activity.
Christmas tin can toss
Everyone is familiar with the tin can toss game, but what about making it Christmas themed? And replacing the traditional tennis ball with a bean bag or foam ball means that you can play it indoors too.
Cork reindeer
Here are some really cheery reindeer decorations to make with the children. Each reindeer takes only a couple of minutes to make (although the least able children might need a hand making the antlers) so the children can make loads of them without getting bored.
Digestive biscuit Christmas puddings
This is a very simple activity that even the youngest children can do - make a fun Christmas pudding from a chocolate digestive biscuit.
Elf doughnuts
The children will love making these teeny-weeny 'doughnuts' to leave out for Father Christmas' elves on Christmas Eve - although they probably won't last that long!
Fan-fold Christmas trees
These folded paper Christmas trees make cheap and attractive Christmas decorations - perfect for the children to take home with them. The youngest children might need a little help with all the folding and unfolding, but otherwise they're really easy to make.
Felt advent calendar
You can make an Advent calendar for your club with just some felt, glue and fabric pens. It is a perfect activity to involve the children in as you can set up a whole production line of little elves drawing round the templates, cutting them out, gluing them, writing on them, and hanging them up. You could use exactly the same method to make Christmas bunting, featuring a variety of Christmas-themed shapes: snowmen, baubles, Christmas puddings etc.
Festive robins
These cute little robins are very Christmassy, and easy to make. You can model them using fondant icing, Fimo, or Plasticine. Depending on which medium you use, you can make cake toppers, keyrings, brooches, or hanging tree decorations.
Hand print Christmas wreaths
This Christmas wreath is so easy to make that even the youngest children will have no problem with it, but despite its simplicity it looks surprisingly effective. A good craft for the children to make and take home with them.
Home-made snow
How often have you wished for snow, but the weather wouldn't oblige? Well here's a great way to make it yourself! It's quite messy but appeals to children of all ages (even teenagers!) and you can add a bit of a science experiment onto the end of the activity if you like.
It's a wrap!
Any Christmas gift looks more enticing when presented in an attractive package. So we have a collection of ideas for making your home-made gifts look fabulous with some crafty packaging ideas.
Pillow Boxes
Paper Plate Gift Baskets
Cereal Box Gift Bags
Paper Cup Gift Boxes
Mini woolly hat decorations
These mini woolly hats are super-cute! They make sweet decorations or can be used to embellish hairbands etc. No knitting required! When we tested out this activity on the children, they got really keen and rapidly churned out loads of them.
Paper bag stars
These large star decorations look so impressive but in fact they're so easy to make, just using paper bags and some glue. Use different coloured bags for different effects, or get the children to decorate plain paper bags. Ideal for Christmas decorations and other occasions.
Paperchain Christmas tree
Designed to hang on a door or wall, this paperchain Christmas tree is the perfect solution if you are limited on space at your club for your Christmas displays. And lots of small hands will make light work of the lengths of paperchain.
Paper plate penguins
These paper plate penguins are really simple to make — even the youngest children should have no difficulty. They look so cute that they're guaranteed to lighten the mood if the post-Christmas blues have set in.
Peg Christmas wreath
Create a colourful Christmas wreath from a wire coat-hanger, beads and some pegs. Looks lovely just as it is, or you can use it to display Christmas cards.
Personalised Christmas baubles
You can make personalised baubles very cheaply, using basic plain baubles and 3D paint. You can either make them with the children, as gifts for their family and friends, or you could use them as a fundraising activity, decorating baubles to order at a Christmas event. (We've done this several times and it's always very successful.)
Pine cone bird feeders
These pine cone bird feeders are a good way to encourage wildlife into your garden and are very satisfying to make. You can wrap them up nicely as Christmas gifts for grandparents, or even sell them as a Christmas fundraiser.
Pine cone Christmas trees
These mini Christmas trees make perfect place-card holders, or are attractive just as decorations. They require the use of a hot-melt glue gun (which is always mysteriously popular with the older children) but are otherwise very simple to assemble.
Pine cone fire-lighters
If the darker evenings make you long for a roaring fire, what about making some of these pine cone fire-lighters? Using little more than scavenged pine cones, string and the ends from old candles, they are really cheap to make and are much more attractive (and less smelly) than the usual shop-bought fire-lighters.
Reindeer food
This is a very easy Christmas activity for the children and helps get everyone in the Christmas mood. The children can make up the bags of food for themselves or to give to younger siblings; alternatively you could make up a big batch and sell them at a fundraising event (we always sell loads at our school's Christmas Fair).
Reindeer gingerbread
Everyone loves decorating biscuits, and this clever conversion of the basic gingerbread man shape into a cute reindeer caused great excitement and delight with the children at our club. You can extend the activity by making your own gingerbread men the day before, or you can take the easy option and buy them ready-made. If you do make your own gingerbread men, you could punch a hole in the top before baking and then thread a ribbon through the finished reindeer biscuit so that it can be used as a tree ornament.
Ribbon Christmas trees
These simple little decorations use nothing more than some twigs, some off-cuts of ribbon and a bit of string. Very easy to make and look very pretty on a tree or hung in groups.
Snow globes
Snow globes are a fun winter-themed activity and are pretty simple to make. Adults and children alike seem unable to resist the urge to reach out to shake them! You can also extend the activity into a science experiment by getting the children to try different formulations for the water and glitter mixture to see which results in the best snowfall effect.
Winter houses
You need to plan a little ahead with these winter houses in order to allow time for the paint to dry, but the end results are well worth it. Once you pop an LED tea-light inside to make the windows glow, the houses look really beautiful, especially when grouped together to make a cosy street scene.