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If your kids get giddy at the sound of jingle bells, they are absolutely going to love these jingle bell activities! They are simple and full of holiday spirit!
“Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way!”
My kids absolutely love the Jingle Bells Christmas song. From November to January, that’s all I hear!
Yes, at times it might seem like “Oh no, not again!” but I’ve learnt to just go with it.
Let’s face it, they’re excited for Christmas and Jingle Bells is an easy traditional song to learn.
That being said, I decided to come up with some jingle bell activities! Simple to add to their enthusiasm.
This Christmas Tree Bell Transfer Activity is a lot of fun, too.
Jingle Bell Cup Target Toss
For this jingle bell toss you will need:
- Jingle Bells (affiliate link, the big ones work the best)
- plastic cups
- painters tape
Tape the plastic red cups to the side of a table using the painters tape so that the cups are hanging off the edge and the tops are flush with the top of the table.
Have your child slide the bells across the table to try to get them into the cups.
My daughter did this over and over again.
When she ran out of bells she would pick up all the bells that missed the cups and do it again.
Target practice is a fun way to build gross motor skills while doubling up and working on hand-eye coordination for fine motor skills.
If you’d like to add in some math and addition to this jingle bell activity to make it a Christmas math game and work on math skills.
Simple add number values to each cup and have your child add up their score when they run out of bells (or after they roll a certain amount).
Who doesn’t love to knock things down or get goals?
Jingle Bell Egg Carton Toss
This activity all you need is jingle bells (medium sized) and a recycled egg carton (or a muffin tin would work).
Place the egg carton on the floor against a wall or in a corner.
Then all there is to do is have your child toss the bells into the egg carton, but its harder than it looks!
My daughters liked to make the jingle bells bounce so they would throw the bells against the floor first to make it bounce into the egg carton.
Once again, both my girls continued to do this over and over again.
I must say, some bells would bounce like crazy and others would barely do anything.
However, that added to the fun and excitement of the activity.
Add in learning to this jingle bell activity by writing letters or numbers into the bottom of the egg carton and have your child try to land it in a certain section.
Jingle Bell Color Sorting Sensory
For this jingle bell idea, you will need:
- toilet rolls or any cardboard tube
- colored dot stickers
- metal cookie sheet
- of course…. jingle bells!
Place one colored dot sticker onto each toilet roll that matches the color of bells you have.
If you don’t have colored dot stickers, you can simple mark the cardboard tubes with colored markers.
Now have your child sort out the bells by color into each of the rolls.
The reason we added the metal cookie sheet was to add some jingle bell noise to it.
Why not make it a sensory activity, too!
Once my daughter had sorted out the bells by color, she thought it would be fun to shake the cardboard toilet rolls with the bells in it to hear the sound of a jingle bell.
This was fun as we instantly starting singing “Jingle Bells” together.
While you’re at it, check out these fun activities to do with cardboard tubes!
Jingle Bell Threading
For this activity, you will need pipe cleaners and jingle bells.
Have your child thread the bells onto the pipe cleaner.
Bonus idea, you could also do this threading with ribbons and make a jingle bell necklace!
You could have them place the bells randomly, or you could add in an extra learning element to the activity by having them sort the bells by color, or even by size.
My daughter wanted to do it randomly.
Having the different sized bells was great as it added a challenge to it. Some bells were easier to thread than others.
Threading is great fine motor practice.
When my daughter had enough threading we turned the pipe cleaners into jingle bell bracelets.
She instantly took off running around the house shaking her hands everywhere.
You can take this jingle bell threading up a notch and turn it into a jingle bell craft! Simply tie the ends together and you made yourself a jingle bell wreath ornament to hang on the tree!
Jingle bell fun to it’s finest!
Jingle Bell Dice Roll Learning Activity
Let’s hear those sleigh bells jingling in this next jingle bell idea…
Let’s get learning with this jingle bell counting activity! You will need:
- an empty bottle
- dice
- jingle bells
- a spoon (optional)
Have your child roll the die, then place that corresponding number of bells into the bottle.
If you’d like to add a fine motor challenge to it, have your child use a spoon to place the bells in the bottle.
My daughter liked to count out the number of holiday bells she needed.
Then she could cup her hands around the bottle top to slide the jingle bell in.
This learning activity then lead into making a sensory bottle noise maker.
She asked for the lid then shook the bottle all around.
Another fun sensory activity with jingle bells!
She made herself a jingle bell discovery bottle without even planning on it.
This will be a great addition to all the jingle bell songs you sing for the season!
It’s great how some activities will naturally lead itself into another activity. I love it when this happens.
Completely child lead fun!
If your child loves dice games, check this one out!
Magnetic Jingle Bell Stem Challenge
The last jingle bell activity, and definitely my youngest daughter’s favorite, is the Jingle Bell Magnet Stem Challenge.
For this activity, you will need a glass, bells and a magnetic wand.
When we first started this activity, we tried to use a bottle however we found some challenges with it.
We could get the jingle bells up the side of the bottle but we couldn’t get it past the neck of the bottle and out, which led to some serious frustration.
So instead, we tried a regular drinking glass.
This worked much better.
The jingle bell stem challenge was to get all the jingle bells out of the glass without touching them with your hands.
It took some concentration and problem solving skills, but my daughter eventually got it.
And, wow, was she ever excited!
She did this a few times as she wanted to practice her skills and then she moved on.
Magnet & Jingle Bell Free Play
She just wanted to play with all the jingle bells and the magnet.
My daughter would place the magnet into the container of bells and see how many she could pick up at once.
One other thing we found out in the process of doing this stem activity, was that not all the bells were magnetic. The smallest bells were not.
Who knew?
I guess they must made of a different material, so do a test with your jingle bells before starting this activity with your kids.
“Look at me, Mom! I got them all!”
So much excitement from some holiday bells and magnetic wand!
So simple!
For more magnet fun, check out this Magnet Discovery Table.
Jingle bells and a few other simple household supplies have provided hours of entertainment for my girls.
We got into the holiday spirit by having some Jingle Bell fun!
These are perfect for the Christmas season, we have collect a few more jingle bell ideas below for you to check out as well:
- Check out this Jingle Bell Painting from Fantastic Fun & Learning
- You’ll love the simplicity of the Jingle Bells Sensory Bin from The Resourceful Mama
- Make a Jingle Bell Craft with a music twist from Pre-K Pages
Give one or more of these Jingle Bell activities a try.
Which one is your favorite?
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