Nativity Craft for Kids

A Cute and Simple Nativity Craft

This popsicle stick nativity craft is fun for toddlers and preschoolers, and it’s a great way to teach the littles about Jesus’ humble birth. It’s easy to set up and so fun to create. It’s a fun way for kids to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

You can never have too many Christmas crafts or activities, at least that’s how I feel (and thankfully my 3 year old agrees! Feel free to follow me on Instagram where I share more of our holiday crafts and activities!). Crafts are a fun way to develop fine motor skills and to build creativity. This nativity craft for kids is a great opportunity to teach kids about the true meaning of Christmas. We love to read books to go along with the activities we do so you can find the books I used linked at the bottom of the post. I also updated this post in November 2022 with a beautiful nativity set for kids at the bottom of the post.

This post contains affiliate links. Adult supervision is required for this activity. Please use your own discretion in whether this is an age-appropriate activity for your child. See full disclosure here.

Materials Needed:

Cardboard (a large piece for the base)
Jumbo Craft Sticks (about 6 depending on the size)
Hay
Elmer’s Glue
Construction Paper (or more cardboard: used for Baby Jesus cutouts)
Star Button (or yellow paper)
Yellow Pipe Cleaners
Safety Scissors (or regular scissors for the grownup to use)
Pen

Please note some of these materials are choking hazards, so please be careful with the items you choose for your child, and please always supervise them during activities.

Related: Gift Guide for Baby’s First Christmas

Start by placing all the jumbo popsicle sticks on your large cardboard piece to create the stable and the manger shapes. You will need six jumbo craft/popsicle sticks. Use two popsicle sticks in an “x” shape for the manger. Make the bottom part of the “x” shorter than the top section. Once you have the pieces in place where you want them, glue the popsicle sticks to the cardboard base. My son had so much fun gluing the popsicle sticks onto the cardboard! Give glue to kids and they’re happy already, right?!

Related: Montesorri-Inspired Gift Guide for Littles

After all the popsicle sticks are glued creating the stable and manger, glue some “hay” on top of the manger. For the hay, you can use straw, sticks, pieces of yellow yarn, or yellow/tan paper shreds. We used excelsior from the florist department at Dollar Tree for our hay.

Once the hay is glued on the top part of the manger, cut the baby shape out of cardboard or construction paper. Depending on the age of your child, you could have them use safety scissors to cut the shapes out for Baby Jesus. Because we used cardboard, I had to use sharper scissors so I cut that part out for my son. You want to cut an oval/kidney shape and a separate circle shape. Glue the oval onto the hay, then glue the circle on one side of the oval for Baby Jesus’ head. Complete the face (circle) by drawing sweet sleeping eyes and a smile.

Related: Easy Rainbow Craft

Lastly, glue the shining star on top of the stable. We used a yellow star button or you can cut a star shape from a yellow piece of construction paper. Cut the yellow pipe cleaners into short pieces and glue them around the star. You can see how much glue we put on there in the photo above. Once the glue dried overnight, the nativity looked like this:

This nativity craft is a great opportunity to talk about how and when Jesus was born. I love how this activity helps us remember the true meaning of Christmas.

The same morning we made this craft, we also read a couple of our nativity books. You can check out our other favorite Christmas books here.

Here are the nativity books we read when we did this craft. You can click the pictures to view them directly on Amazon:

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11

Are you going to try this craft? Let me know below in the comments!

How beautiful is this nativity set? This wooden wooden nativity set is both a decoration and a toy for littles 3 and older. Little ones can familiarize themselves with the Christmas story and reenact it in their own way. The colors have been deliberately toned down to give the figures a contemporary yet timeless appearance. This is on my own wishlist so I had to share! If you want to see other Christmas gift ideas for kids, check out my Montessori Inspired Gift Guide for Littles 0-6 years old and Baby’s First Christmas; The Ultimate Gift Guide.