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[For 3-year-olds] Perfect January Winter & New Year Crafts! A Collection of Fun, Hands-On Ideas

Do you find yourself wondering every year what to make with the children in January’s childcare activities? It can be surprisingly hard to find crafts that three-year-olds will enjoy while taking in New Year’s motifs and the feeling of winter.

In this guide, we’ll share ideas you can enjoy together with three-year-olds—from New Year-perfect projects like paper plate spinning tops, kagami mochi, and shishimai (lion dance), to wintery crafts like fluffy sheep and snowmen.

Activities that use hands and fingertips, such as finger stamping, finger painting, and origami, will spark children’s curiosity.

Some of the things you make can also be played with afterward, so please use these ideas for inspiration! Because the children’s creations are treated as artworks, we use the term “seisaku” (production/artwork) in the text.

[For 3-year-olds] Perfect winter and New Year crafts for January! A collection of fun, hands-on ideas (11–20)

Oden that can also become a wall!

Here’s a craft project for making oden that even toddlers can do, and it can also be used for wall displays! First, let’s make the oden shop.

Cut colored construction paper into a face shape, then draw or glue on the oden shopkeeper’s facial features.

For very young children, prepare the face parts in advance.

Apply glue to the head area and stick on yarn hair piece by piece.

It’ll be fun to have yarn in various colors.

Next, let’s make the oden ingredients.

Stamp the konnyaku pattern using a cotton swab, make lots of your favorite ingredients, and then glue them onto colored construction paper of your choice to finish!

Make oden together with adults! From 0-year-old children

This is a craft activity where you stick oden ingredients made from construction paper onto a paper plate.

Depending on age, children can enjoy mainly sticking on pre-made pieces, or they can cut construction paper with scissors, draw patterns, and make the ingredients themselves.

The examples shown here include konnyaku, mochi-filled pouches, and kelp rolls.

There are many other classic oden ingredients too, so it would be fun to freely create them with construction paper.

It’s an idea that excites viewers as well, as they can see what kind of oden each child has made.

Oden made with origami and tissue paper

Tissue paper can transform into all sorts of oden ingredients! For chikuwa, wrap white tissue paper around a toilet paper roll core and brush on brown paint with a cotton swab—done.

For mochi kinchaku, put a small crumpled piece of tissue inside yellow tissue paper and twist the opening shut with a chenille stem—OK! Combine these with other oden items made from origami, and you’ve got a full plate of oden.

You can also make kombu by accordion-folding black tissue paper and securing the center with a chenille stem, and make an egg by sticking a ball of yellow tissue paper onto light orange origami!

A wall display of oden that even two-year-olds can enjoy!

[Making Oden] A childcare worker explains how to make a version that can also become a wall display! (Ages 2 and up) #shorts
A wall display of oden that even two-year-olds can enjoy!

Stick this on the wall and it’s sure to make you hungry! First, cut out the shapes of a pot and soup from construction paper and glue them in place.

Next, cut out your favorite oden ingredients from construction paper.

If teachers at kindergartens or nurseries, or parents/guardians, pre-draw the shapes of various oden ingredients on the paper, children will only need to do the cutting.

Once the ingredients are cut out, arrange and paste them however you like inside the pot you made at the start—that’s it! Paste lots of your favorite ingredients and complete your very own original oden pot.

Everyone’s favorite! Oden delivery

We’re going to put odeng (Japanese hot pot) ingredients made from origami into a pot made from construction paper.

First, fold gray origami paper into a triangle and stick on a round sticker to make konnyaku.

Next, fold white origami paper into a triangle, stuff some crumpled tissue or similar inside, and glue the edges to make hanpen.

Fold the corners of yellow origami inward to round them, draw the pattern, and you’ve got daikon.

With light orange origami, keep the white side facing up, fold it into a long narrow strip, and stick on a round sticker colored brown to make chikuwa-bu.

For the egg, layer white and yellow construction paper cut into circles.

Paste the finished ingredients into the pot, draw steam, add a noren curtain, and you’re done!

Snowman Fashion Show

Developing Thinking and Observation Skills through Crafts! February/Winter Craft Book: “Snowman Fashion Show” — For Ages 3–4 [Nursery/Kindergarten]
Snowman Fashion Show

Here’s a craft idea where kids can freely create snowmen using circle, triangle, and square pieces.

First, stick a large round piece onto a backing sheet to make the base of the snowman.

Then glue on a scarf made by wrapping yarn around a piece of thick paper cut into a rectangle, and you’re all set! From here, let the kids freely express their snowmen using the circle, triangle, and square pieces.

Some children might use circular pieces for the eyes, while others might use triangular pieces.

It’ll be fun to see how their unique sensibilities come through in their creations!

[Age 3] Perfect Winter and New Year Crafts for January! A Collection of Fun-to-Make Ideas (21–30)

A bubble art snowman

https://www.tiktok.com/@levwell_hoikushi/video/7587300923865648405

Soap-bubble art creates unique patterns.

This time, let’s use the technique to make a snowman.

First, prepare some colored bubble solution.

Just mix soap solution into white paint thinned with water.

Dip a toilet paper roll core into the bubble solution and use it as a stamp so that two circles connect.

These will be the snowman’s head and body.

Once it’s dry, draw the face, hands, and a scarf with pens or crayons to finish a cute snowman.