Today is
Day 19 of the
Creative Christmas Countdown and we will be sharing with you how we created TWO Snow Villages to play with at our house! We are so excited to be participating in this countdown with 23 other fabulous bloggers!
I have never had a snow village but thought it would be a fun decoration to have at our house, so we decided to create something that looked good and was fun to play with/eat too! :)
Here are the two creations we came up with...
1. A Snow Village made out blocks
2. A rice crispy Snow Village
Here's how we created them...
Block Snow Village
Materials Needed: blocks, scissors, white cardstock, pastel and white paint, paint brushes, packing peanuts (or cotton balls or white tissue paper), double-sided tape, markers, and glue
1. We gathered up blocks from our block bucket and traced them onto white paper. We have these
Melissa and Doug blocks, but any blocks will work.
2. Mix up some paint and paint your block outlines. I learned that if you cut them out after you paint, the paper doesn't roll up at the edges as much.
3. Cut out some white triangles to use as roofs (or paint some like we did) and grab some packing peanuts (or other white fluffy items).
4. Cut up the packing peanuts
5. Glue them to the roofs.
6. Let everything dry and then cut everything out.
7. Attach the pieces to the blocks using double stick tape.
8. Make some trees using green cardstock half circles and staples. Add some white puffy paint to create snow.
9. Cut out doors and window panes. Draw lines on the windows and then stick them on to the houses.
(We also made a railroad track to go on the top of our tunnel block)
10. Work together to set up your scene and then grab your friends to come play.
Watch out! The Lego men sure know how to throw snowballs!
Thomas and friends didn't want to be left out either!
We had such a fun afternoon playing with our snow village!!
Rice Crispy Snow Village
This village is much simpler and yummy!
Materials Needed: box of rice crispies (any version), wooden spoon, bag of marshmallows, butter (6 tablespoons), candies to decorate with, ice cream cones for trees, sprinkles, frosting (homemade or store bought- we were lazy and just bought some), plastic knife, and a house template (if you want one, email me toddlerapproved@gmail.com), and a cookie sheet.
1. To create our rice crispies we followed the directions on the box... they were too gooey, so if I were you I would follow this
recipe to make your rice crispy treats so that they are firm and don't collapse.
2. Once the treats were done I flattened them out in a cookie sheet and then cut around my templates to make the house pieces.
3. Next I set them aside and put them in the fridge for about 20 minutes to harden up (while we snacked on the remnants!)
4. Then we added frosting and put the houses together. We made three houses total.
5. Then we started decorating!!
6. To make the snowy tree we just frosted the ice cream cone with white frosting and then dropped lots of green sprinkles on it!
7. We also did a lot of sampling :) Here is my son claiming his territory!
(For one house we mixed some cocoa in the rice crispy treats to change the color of the roof up a bit!)
After about an hour of standing, our gooey houses collapsed (the roofs sunk in), which is why I would recommend using the recipe above (and not using the recipe on the box like I did). :)
The goal of this activity was the experience, not the end product though... so my son didn't care AT ALL about the destruction.
He has spent practically every moment since we made these on Saturday trying to sneak more tastes. :) Definitely a successful and fun activity!
I don't know why I never thought to make a rice crispy "gingerbread house" before... It was so delicious!
Wowzers! That was a long and detailed post. I hope you enjoyed these little villages that we created. Thanks for stopping by!
Make sure to check out Day 20 of the Creative Christmas Countdown
here tomorrow!
Have you missed any of the other posts? You can head on over to the
Creative with Kids Christmas Countdown page to catch up!
