Free Elf on the Shelf Activity Cards
This is our first year doing Elf on the Shelf for our 3 and 4 year old. I’ve heard varying things on these little Elf’s. Some parents love them, other’s say it so SO much work. They struggle to come up with ideas or sometimes just completely forget to move the Elf all together.
The holidays are stressful enough as it is. I wanted to make this an easy, inexpensive, yet fun and magical experience for my girls.
So I went into this new activity knowing if I was going to achieve all that, I had to do some serious preparing. I wanted to have all 24 day planned out before the elf even made her debut.
I created 30 activity cards, ranging from baking to activities to good deeds, even a few cards to encourage kiddos to clean up around the house! I have also included a page with blank daily activity cards so you can write your own if you need to. The last page in the download is blank “Letter from Santa” sheets. I plan to use these for fun updates such as “Your elf brought the toys you picked out to donate to the North Pole last night. Thank you for thinking of others during the holiday season!”
If you don’t have an Elf on the Shelf yet, you can grab one here.
I wanted this to be an activity that encouraged giving back and helping others, while also having fun!
And in true holiday sprit, I wanted to share these with you and give you the opportunity to use them in your home as well!
You can download a free copy at the bottom of this post.
These full-color cards print 4 to a page.
I would recommend to print your cards on heavier paper (I used 60 lb).
Here’s a list of the 30 activities included:
- Listen to Christmas music
- Put up the Christmas tree
- Make your own Christmas ornament
- Make Hot Chocolate
- Make Christmas Cookies
- Skittle Activity (See photo above & Google “Skittle Science Experiment” if you have never seen this!)
- Draw a picture for Santa
- Make a Christmas card for a family member or friend and mail it to them
- Pick out three toys to donate
- Gather food to donate to the Food Pantry
- Help make the meals for the family
- Clean up all your toys
- Santa craft: give Santa a fluffy beard! (see photo below. (Here’s a copy of the Santa printable I used)
- Write your Christmas list for Santa (here’s the blank template we use for our girls)
- Wrap presents for family and friends
- Make a fort and read Christmas books inside
- Watch a Christmas movie with your family
- Drive around and look at Christmas lights
- Make a Gingerbread House
- Make a Christmas creation out of play dough
- Make Christmas Eve cookies for Santa
- Make Cinnamon Dough Ornaments (this is the recipe we use)
- Candy cane hunt
- Draw a picture of Frosty the Snowman
- Read your favorite Christmas books
- Build a Snowman
- Take fun holiday photos with family
Download A Copy For Free Below
**Please read**
If you have read the comments on this post, you know some readers were experiencing printing issues when I first released this printable. After much Googling and stress over why on earth this was happening, I finally solved it! I have updated the PDF to print properly! You can select which ever version is best for your printing set up
Just want to thank you for this!!! It’s my first year with an Elf on the shelf and I cannot wait to use these ideas!!!
Hi Samantha! I’m so happy to hear you like them! I’m excited for our first year of Elf on the Shelf too!
Thanks sooo much for these, I´m planning to do this with my little grandson, who´s never tryed anything like this before.
Hi Maryann! Im sure he will love it! Elf on the Shelf is such a magical experience for little ones!
These are seriously adorrrrrable! Thanks for putting them together!
Thank you! I have to admit that I had a lot of fun putting it together! I can’t even begin to imagine what a joy it will be to get to do it every day during December!
Thank you so much for these fun-filled learning activities! Really appreciate your efforts and can’t thank you enough! My kids (and I :)) ) love these. Best of luck with the amazing job that you do! Merry Christmas!! :))
Hi There, i have requested the download twice and sent email twice but still havent received the cards?
Thank you so much for sharing the elf inspiration. I have printed them out for my daughter and I’m going to laminate them for her. My Grandsons will love these activities
Laminating is a great idea! I hope the kiddos enjoy them!
Thank you for being so kind and Helpful!
Hi! I love these, however, every time I try to print, the whole thing is printed in black. Literally bought a new printer because I thought my printer was broken but it just did it again. Any advice?
Hi Kim. A few people have had this issue and it seems to stem from the program used to open and print the PDF’s. I have since updates the document format to a non-pdf format and this has worked great for everyone. Simply come back to the blog post and click the “download now” button for a new download in the new format. This will print just fine! Sorry for the trouble. Technology always picks the worst time to go crazy on me!
These are wonderful. I love that you added kindness to these activities. Thank you so much.
Thank you! I really wanted this to be so much more than just “naughty or nice” and gift focused. I want to show our girls that giving can fill your heart so much more than receiving. Hope you and your family enjoy the activities!
Thank you so much ! love what you do. So creative and great understanding of kids.
I’ve always been against starting elf on the shelf for my 4 yr old because I didn’t like the “naughty” aspect of it but I was so happy to find your printouts to bring a bit of fun to this strange year. I was able to download the cards but for some reason when I print the text box comes out black. Any suggestions? Thank you!
Hi Lisa!
I have heard this from a few people! Got to love technology glitches, right?! I have updated the original blog post to include a link to download the cards in a different format, as opposed to a PDF. Please re-download from the button in the blog post and print from there! Sorry for the trouble. Thanks!