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With a snow day looming Sunday night, I knew I wanted to set up some activities for the girl so that she’d have some fun things to work with that weren’t the same things she’d been playing with while snowed in all day Sunday.
Because St. Patrick’s Day is coming up, and we have lots of green stuff in the house, I thought I would whip up a quick activity tray. 
With everything close at hand it took me maybe 10 minutes to put this together, but it might be a longer project if you need to find some supplies.
What’s on the Tray
- shamrock lacing cards made out of felt
- green laces
- green pipe cleaners
- green and white beads
- green buttons
Putting it Together
I used a shamrock shape from my holiday stuff to trace and cut out the shamrocks. I used some stiff felt, but you could also use foam if you had it.
Then I used a regular single hole punch to punch holes around the edge, trying but failing not to get too close.
I pulled three different green laces out of different lacing/beading sets we have to finish it.
Then I knew I wanted to do something with beads because the girl loves beading and stringing and making patterns. So I went through her bead stash and pulled out some green and white beads and a couple of pipe cleaners. The container is just a lid that happened to be handy.
While I was over in art area I noticed some green buttons in her sensory stuff (from some long ago St. Patrick’s Day sensory box) so I added those, too.
Everything went on a green tray and I left it for her on the table in the playroom.
What Happened
The girl was up at 6 and we were upstairs by 6:30, so I was really glad this was there for her to play with and didn’t need a lot of supervision. 
She still gets frustrated by lacing things, but I’m hopeful that little ways to make it interesting like this will keep her trying.
She played with the shamrock stranding a bit, then tried a button on the thinnest string, then stranded some beads. 
She went back and forth between them a bit and probably played with it for a good half an hour. For 10 minutes of work, I’d call that a win.
Do you do any holiday themed trays or boxes for your kids? I’d love to hear about it!
