New Year holidays with a child: how to spend them interesting and unusual in 2025?

New Year holidays will last until January 8 in 2025. Classes in most Russian schools and kindergartens will begin on January 9. This means that there is a whole week of weekend ahead, which you can spend useful and interesting with your child. YokoSun has prepared several ideas for entertainment for the whole family.

1. Family Vacation Diary

At the very beginning of the holidays, start a family diary - a kind of activity planner. Immediately after the New Year, ask your child to come up with ideas for fun during the holidays. All family members can participate. Choose the best ideas together and plan your time using a family diary.

Then you can capture all the fun memories that the weekend gave you. You can paste children's drawings, photographs and anything else that comes to mind into your diary. And it will also help preserve pleasant impressions of the time spent together for a long time.

2. Snow Fortress

Build a snow fort with your child. But in order for it to turn out truly grandiose, you need to prepare.

Choose a suitable day for construction - the temperature will be favorable from -5 to -10 degrees Celsius, when the snow is quite sticky. Dress warmly and gather your equipment: children's shovels and buckets for playing with sand.

And now, when the little architect’s team is ready to begin, select a suitable site. It should be a flat surface of the earth, without stones and debris. And then a real flight of fantasy begins. Help your child and support him even in the most daring architectural decisions.

3. Christmas photo shoot

Have a Christmas photo shoot to capture sweet moments together. It will be difficult to find a professional photo studio during the holidays, but this is for the best!

Create a scenery for shooting with your child. Ask for a sketch and then start setting up your home photography space. As decoration you can use New Year's garlands, boxes with gifts, snowflakes cut out of paper and, of course, a Christmas tree.

Use the timer on your phone camera to have the warmest family photo shoot ever.

4. Culinary Marathon

Long weekends are a great time to teach your child how to cook. This activity not only provides an opportunity to have a good time, but is also beneficial for the child. Cooking, for example, develops fine motor skills, logic, and, of course, taste perception.

Try making homemade cookies during the winter holidays. Knead the dough in advance and invite your child to lay out the molds of the future culinary product. You will find recipes for cookies and other dishes that you can prepare with your child in our article - https://dzen.ru/a/Zw-lev9oPiMh2t9G

5. A journey through New Year's traditions around the world

Have an educational marathon during the holidays. Explore New Year's traditions from around the world with your child, prepare traditional dishes and holiday decorations.

For example, in Japan it is customary to decorate the house with fir branches, but they do not hang Christmas tree decorations on them, but sweet mochi desserts. This tradition is called motibana. Try to repeat it at home and tell your child more about the New Year's customs of other countries. It will be interesting and informative.

6. Snow scientists

Become real scientists this weekend and do some experiments with snow. Try instantly freezing boiling water. You just need to boil water and quickly pour it out in the cold. The child will be surprised why hot water instantly turns into snow, even faster than cold water. Explain to him that the fact is that warm water first freezes from below, while cold water freezes from above, when an ice crust forms.

There are a lot of similar experiments. But the main thing is that you will spend your time useful and interesting in this way.

7. Shadow Theater

Arrange a cozy home shadow theater. To do this, you just need an improvised stage in the form of a wall, a light source, as well as paper and scissors. Develop a production together with your child: come up with a plot and main characters. Then cut out the silhouettes of the characters from paper and stick them on your fingers. Invite the whole family to a performance and add dialogue or music.

Shadow play games also develop fine motor skills well. You will find even more interesting entertainment for its development in our article - https://dzen.ru/a/Z1wdvB8FKnjuCMLG

8. Christmas movie screening

A cozy movie night with the whole family is a great idea for a January weekend. Prepare a real home theater with snacks and drinks. Sit back and turn on your favorite Christmas movies that kids will love.

We have already prepared a selection of Christmas movies and cartoons for you. Here you will find both the good old domestic classics and foreign novelties - https://dzen.ru/a/Z20SxWOwHnTz7vnu

9. City Christmas tree

Go to the main Christmas tree in your city. Usually, this place has a lot of entertainment prepared: slides, labyrinths and even fairy-tale fairs. There are also children gathered here with whom your child can make friends.

10. Hillslide Expedition

Active lovers will love an expedition along your city's ice slides. Mark on the map the places you would like to visit, stock up on ice packs and go on an expedition. Try to slide down all the slides that you come across on this journey, and ask your child to rate each one.

No matter how you spend these holidays, remember that the love and warmth that loved ones give him are important for a child. May your baby always be surrounded by the care of his family in 2025, and may his most cherished dreams come true.