The Homefire Christmas Break Busy Book: 40 Quiet Activity Pages for Kids (Printable)

Description

Fifteen quiet minutes, one page at a time

You know the third day of Christmas break. The new has worn off the tree, it’s too cold or too wet to send anybody outside, supper is two hours away, and somebody says, “I’m bored.” I’ve stood in that kitchen with four of them.

I didn’t need a craft that took an hour to set up and an hour to clean up. I needed one page, a pencil and fifteen minutes of quiet. So that’s what this is.

What it is (and what it isn’t)

The Christmas Break Busy Book is 47 printable pages: 40 activity pages, a Start Here page and the answer keys. Every page is one sit-down of about fifteen minutes. No scissors. No glue. No glitter. And no help needed from you.

It isn’t a curriculum and it isn’t a keepsake craft. It’s the page you hand over so you can finish the gravy.

What’s inside

• The First Christmas, three pages that come first on purpose: a stable to color, a star to follow down to the stable door, and a fourteen-word find from the Christmas story
• Coloring: fourteen pages (a snowman in a scarf, a penguin with a present, a reindeer, Santa in his sleigh and more)
• Dot to dot: five pages
• Finish the picture: four pages
• Mazes: five pages, from the tree to the gingerbread house
• Word searches: four pages
• Word scrambles: three pages
• Sudoku: two pages
• Answer keys at the back, for the grown-up or for the child who is truly stuck
• A one-page Start Here with the 15-minute plan

Every page says who it suits

Littles (2 to 4) and early elementary kids (5 to 7) will live in the coloring and the dot to dots. Big kids (8 to 10) will want the mazes and the word searches. The scrambles and sudoku are for tweens (11 to 12), and plenty of teens and grown-ups will quietly take one too.

Before and after

Before: “Mom, I’m bored,” on a loop, while you’re trying to wrap, cook or just sit down.

After: you print three pages, hand over the crayons, and get one quiet cup of coffee. Tomorrow you print three more.

“Won’t they finish it in a day?”

They will if you hand over the whole book. So don’t. Print three or four pages at a time and keep the rest for the next long afternoon, the drive to Grandma’s, or the pew. Forty pages will carry you through the break.

What you get

One printable PDF (47 pages, US Letter) plus a one-page Start Here. This one is printable only: it’s pencil-and-crayon work, so there is nothing to type and no app to open. A few pages print in color; they work in black and white too.

Who made this

I’m Robin. I spent nearly thirty years as a CFO, most of them working from home while raising four kids, and I’m a grandma of seven now. I build things that work in a real house, in the minutes you actually have.

$9. Instant download. Because it’s a digital file you get right away, all sales are final. Having trouble downloading? Email me at [email protected] and I’ll get you sorted.

You don’t have to be a perfect mom. You just have to keep the fire going.