This article is one of NurtureStore’s easy Christmas crafts for children and part of our Christmas activities and crafts.
Do you have a nativity scene your children can play with? Advent begins today and I know my girls will spend December dressing up as kings, reading Christmas story picture books and generally bursting into a round of Away In A Manger at any opportunity.
We have a beautiful nativity scene which decorates our sitting room each year but it is too delicate for the girls to play with, so this year we decided to make a version the girls can use. And you’ll probably guess what are figures are made of: paper rolls.
The figures were made by wrapping fabric and card around the tubes and glueing into place: a very simple design the girls can make with just a little adult help, and giving them their own nativity to play with to their hearts content.
maryanne says
Very cute – and clever!
Carrie says
Nice idea! We have lots of tissue rolls loitering around=)
maria says
how cute! Good idea, we also made a junk play nativity although we mix it up with clay modeling:)
mermaid says
Very cute! I think I should make something similar.. because this is what Christmas is about isn`t it.
We have actually made five elves and a Santa out of loo rolls.. This is our Christmas story 🙂 Well we have to make up the story first.
When my daughter started school I saw how important Nativity is over here.. or is it just a tradition? Back in Estonia we used to have just little winter stories (forest, animals, snow, Father Christmas with his elves… ).
Jackie says
Cute! One of my friends daughters made a similar nativity set out of toilet paper rolls while the rest of the family was off decorating the house for Christmas! And she left them in the bathroom for all to enjoy… of course, you HAVE to leave that decoration up! These will be great for playing with. The store bought ones are usually too fragile for play!
Maggy, red ted art says
You know me… I LOVE EVERYTHING made out of loo rolls! Well done your girls! Love them!!!
maggy
(and thanks as always for linking up to Kids Get Crafty!!!)
Cathy @ NurtureStore says
Thanks for all your kind comments. Mermaid, of course for some people the nativity is at the heart of Christmas but I think for many it is more about the tradition. The school nativity play is something everyone would remember taking part in when they were a child.
Shell says
Such a darling idea! I would love to feature this activity and photo on my preschool website… if that is okay with you… I would give you credit for it, of course. My site is http://www.prekfun.com I’m currently working on the Christmas theme on my site. Thank you for sharing this cute activity… your daughters did a fabulous job on the nativity scene.
kebeni says
they are gorgeous
keepcatebusy (Cate) says
We have a fisher-price ‘little people’ nativity scene for just this reason (so the kiddos can actually play with it). But I love your idea – and I bet they had fun making them 🙂 xxx
amandab says
Yes, we have been playing with toilet rolls for the last few weeks ourselves. I am thinking I will save this for my advent calender activities for next year, as we are going through the Christmas Crazies here at the moment and I don’t think Princess would be repsonsive enough to the story to get why we were making a nativity scene. If only people would stop feeding her coffee at every meal, maybe I would have better luck! (j/k, she doesn’t even like the smell of coffee, I just don’t know why she has been so hyper for so long!)
Robin says
Great idea to reuse scraps!
Thank you for linking up to http://www.thetshirtdiaries.com
Colleen - Sunrise Learning Lab says
How cute! Love this idea! Will have to see if my boys would like to make this Nativity set, as it is such a nice Christmas project.
Thanks for sharing. Hope that you will pop by my blog.
Colleen:)