The Christmas countdown is on! Only one more week until Christmas Eve. And only 5 more days until school is out for the holidays. During the summer break, we spend all day, everyday outdoors at the beach, the park, the splash pad, our backyard, you name it. But in the winter that’s just not the case. As much as I love playing in the snow, it’s cold and the cold gets old fast. (You’d think living in Canada I’d be used to the cold by now, but nope! Haha.) We do make it outdoors every day (because my kids would go stir crazy if we didn’t), but there’s also a lot of time spent indoors. If you’re in need of some ideas for how to keep your kids entertained this winter school break without venturing outdoors, here are 5 fun activities for all ages. Including these amazing activity boxes from KiwiCo (lots more info as well as a crazy-good discount code further down).

1. Holiday baking

Kids adore the mixing and measuring that goes with baking. Add to that colourful decorating and a yummy treat at the end, and you’ve got an indoor activity winner. Make sure to scale your holiday baking projects to your kids’ abilities. For example, pre-measure your ingredients so young kids just have to dump ingredients together.

2. Puzzles

Puzzles are great for kids of all ages. They help develop fine-motor and problem solving skills, and they’re just plain fun. It’s a great way to get kids to calm down and sit still for a little while so you can check an item or two off your todo list.

3. Super-sized painting

We kids looooove drawing and painting. Especially when we cover our entire table in paper (we use the brown paper from our wall-mounted roller and tape it down with painter’s tape). This gives them a huge surface to paint on and us parents don’t have to worry about the mess.

4. Built a blanket fort

Is there anything more quintessential childhood than building a blanket fort? Especially when it’s cold outside, there’s just something so fun about gathering all the pillows and blankets and getting to work on a cozy lair.

5. Activity boxes

Nothing keeps a kid more entertained than something brand new. I absolutely love this trend of subscription boxes for kids and these KiwiCo crates are absolutely amazing. They’re STEM-based activity boxes that are delivered on a monthly basis and provide your child with fun and new hands-on-learning. For anyone who’s never heard of STEM, it’s a curriculum based on educating students in four different disciplines — Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. These crates are such a great way to get kids into STEM-based learning, which is so important in today’s world because it really touches every aspect of our modern lives. From understanding the biology of human beings to the ever-expanding technology that is so prevalent in society today, STEM allows kids to learn about the world around us in a hands-on way to work through real-life situations that they will encounter time and time again.

What I love about KiwiCo is that they have an activity box for every age group from 24 months to 16+. We’ve had a chance to try out the first three boxes: Cricket (24-36 months), Koala (3-4 years), and Kiwi (5-8 years). The Cricket box is absolutely perfect for Nicky’s age group. There was a group of counting blocks in this month’s box as well as some crayons and cutouts for colouring and decorating a growth chart. The blocks, especially, were a huge hit with Nicky. He loves playing them on top of each other from largest to smallest or vice versa and is already counting the numbers on the blocks. It was actually really fascinating for me to watch because we have a bunch of regular blocks here that he’s not all that interested in but these ones he’s now obsessed with.

• For Isabelle, the Koala box was all about gardening this month. From “growing” a cardboard plant (see photo below) while simultaneously reading a book about gardening, to decorating a gardening apron with little felt flowers –
• Isabelle loved it. She was so sad when we had done all the activities haha.
• The Kiwi box is understandably still a little bit advanced for her although we did that one together (so I could help with the more difficult tasks) and she loved it just as much as the Koala box.
• I really loved that it was all about learning more about the human anatomy and building some doctor’s tools, all in a fun and creative way.

The other two boxes that we haven’t had a chance to try out (since my kids are still so young) are: Doodle (9-16+ with an art angle), and Tinker (9-16+ with an engineering angle). You can see examples of each of their boxes on KiwiCo’s website. Everything looks like it’d be a lot of fun.

Seriously, I couldn’t speak more highly about these boxes. We will absolutely be continuing with our subscription and I know my kids are super eager for January’s boxes to arrive in the mail. If you’re looking for a last-minute Christmas gift or just a fun indoor activity for your kids this winter, KiwiCo is a great way to go. You can use code THOTHUB to get 60% off your first month! That means the first box will cost only $7.95 which is amazing. You better hurry though if you want to get it in time for Christmas – December 19th (Tuesday) is the cut off for Christmas shipping in the US. After that, all orders in both Canada and the US will come with a mock crate that you can print out and place under the tree so there’s something for your kids to open. I love the idea of a Christmas present that will come every month to keep the fun going beyond Christmas morning.