8 Holiday Crafts Cute Enough to Gift and Easy Enough to Make as a Family:
No sewing required and a pittance to purchase supplies for this adorable craft. Transform dollar store candy canes into colorful cuddly critters sweet enough to hand out to teachers and classmates alike. Stash the extras in a basket for Holiday visitors equipped with unexpected gifts or hang them on the tree to fill in for ornaments broken in years gone by.
This eco-friendly craft requires some skill, so set your middle schooler to the task when the younger ones are in bed. Put old newspaper to use and make just one tree or a whole glittering forest; Then set your creations out as a centerpiece for pre-holiday parties or gift them to that green-minded neighbor who always invites the kids to help tend the community garden.
* Wine Bag Abandon the sewing in favor of fabric glue or make it a family affair and get your FIT hopeful involved and supervising the youngest of your clan. Then break out the potatoes, foam stamps or sponges and decorate this burlap bag to make any pick from Trader Joe's Union Square wine shop gift-worthy.
* Baby Food Jar Menorah With the advent of Ella's Kitchen and HappyBaby you may not have as many baby food jars to recycle as you used to. Gather the few still hanging around and make the family menorah more personal this year with gliiter, sequins and whatever other flourishes you have on hand.
* Hannukkah Dreidel Craft You already have everything you need on hand to make this light-weight customizeable dreidel. Kids getting antsy at dinner with the in-laws? Look like you have a plan; Put the oldest cousin in charge of this activity and even the nosiest buttinski will have nothing but nice to say about your children's behavior!
Get that holiday baking smell without the temptation to over indulge with these homemade ornaments. Once they're dried paint and decorate to look like your fave holiday cookies. Best part? They'll still be around long after Grandpa has made swift work of the edible treats.
* M & M Candy Wrapper Gift Bag We've all made paperbag wrapping paper; Try the next generation of homemade gift wrap. Finally a reason to unwrap the last of the Halloween candy!
7 Math Lessons Holiday Baking Can Teach:
Measure weight with recipes from Alton Brown at Foodnetwork.com. Add more fun by gifting your little one a digital kitchen scale to encourage longterm kitchen help. Finally a gadget that might make your child want to spend more time with the family!
Measure height/depth or rolled doughs, like sugar cookie or gingerbread. Gift idea: Rolling pin rings to get a precise measurement. Try these from King Arthur Flour:
Measure temperatures of melted candy fillings and other holiday baked goods in Fahrenheit or Celsius with older children, while reviewing the concepts of hot and cold and number identification with younger family members. Older helpers can be challenged with a recipe requiring temperatures to measures in Celsius and then work out the conversions to Fahrenheit while the oven preheats. Get some help with a cool digital thermometer like this one that serves as a cool gift for the young gourmand as well.
Measure the time in seconds, minutes or hours that it takes for bread to rise, cookies to bake or cake to cool using a digital timer or old-fashioned wall clock. We like this wall-clock for its super-cute kid-appeal:
Review shapes while cutting cookies from rolled dough with classic cutters like these.
Fractions have never been as fun as when butter and sugar are involved! Choose a recipe with several dry ingredients to measure to give your offspring multiple opportunities to reinforce the concept of parts of a whole. Dry measuring cups provide a perfectly clear visual demo of 2/3 > 1/4. Extra credit? Use the finished product for even more problem-solving when 8 slices of pie disappear one by one... Our fave dry measuring cups take up almost no space, making them ideal for city chefs of all ages, and their bright colors make them appealing to petite pastry chefs everywhere.
Calculating cost: A lesson for life! With eyes bigger than bellies, most of our children would bake Martha Stewart's entire cookie catalogue left untethered to our bank accounts. Teach the littlest shoppers in your home the benefits of watching the wallet: Let the kids choose the number of recipes you're comfortable shopping for, and then make a day of coupon clipping, circular browsing and aisle strolling before allowing those old enough to grasp paper the opportunity to pay the cashier. Use paper money and real coins just this once to drill the message home, and encourage number identification on the cash register screen and receipt. Then go home a reap the rewards of your hard work in the form of gooey fresh-from-the-oven goodness!
6 NYC Winter Break Staycation Destinations:
Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree: Forget the crowds of tweens sick with Bieber-fever and pack up the fam post-tree lighting for a chance to actually see the tree! Rockefeller Center is located in the center of the complex of buildings between 47th and 50th Streets and 5th and 7th Avenues. B/D/F/V to 47-50 Sts/Rockefeller Center or the 6 to 51st/Lexington.
Take in the Holiday Window Displays: Start at Bloomie's on Lex and 59th Street and make your way to Macy's on 34th and Broadway, passing Barney's, Bergdorf, Saks and Lord and Taylor on your way. Indulge your inner Holly Golightly hand-in-hand with your sweetheart or make it a family scavenger hunt and put the little 'uns in charge of pointing out favorite characters, shapes, colors landmarks along the way!
Ice Skating in Bryant Park:
Take a casual loop around The Pond to share the charm of childhood with your minis or engage your better half in a competitive run around the rink after cashing in for on-site skate-sharpening.
Broadway or bust, baby! And Broadway has plenty of offerings for babies indeed, with Mary Poppins, The Lion King and more available at TKTS on a regular basis. Queue up early for the best picks at the best prices, or send Dad to the line and snag some stocking stuffers at the M & M store while he waits!
Brush Elbows with Butterflies: Light displays at City zoos add magic to any family's winter in New York, but for an up close look at some of the most colorful creatures in the sky, there's no need to wait until the spring's thaw reopens animal houses everywhere. Satisfy your children's cravings for a creative afternoon out of the house and gift him a lifelong memory at the American Museum of Natural History's Butterfly Conservatory.
Exercise your freedom from below zero temps while the whole family gets some sillies out at Chelsea Piers. The batting cages on the west side will provide an hour of fun for about the same price as a trip to the movies once popcorn is said and done. For a more reasonably priced afternoon enlist a neighboring fam to join yours and split the cost. Once the kids are tuckered out, book a sitter to see them snuggled up for the night and check out a more adult playground. We suggest the pop up park in SoHo for eats, treats and indoor heat.
