Christmas Tree Ornament Game

Try this Christmas tree ornament game! It's a fun and creative way to get kids moving.

It's also a great way to work on visual discrimination with kids.

We love making homemade Christmas ornaments and collecting them as we travel or visit places too.

This week we created a Christmas Tree Ornament Hunt, similar to the Stuffed Animal Hunt we shared earlier this year. This time instead of hiding objects around the house, we hid them on our Christmas Tree!

Here's what you need for this easy Christmas Tree Ornament game:

• Phone or camera
• Photos of your favorite Christmas tree ornaments
• Printer
• Cardstock
• Christmas tree (or somewhere to hang your ornaments)
• Ornaments

How to make an I-Spy card for this easy ornament game:

First, take a quick photo of several favorite ornaments on your Christmas tree.

Next, put them into a quick collage and print the collage off onto cardstock. ** I used Canva to make a collage, but you can also just screen shot your photo gallery on your phone (that shows the ornament photos) and then print that out. Easy peasy!

Now you're ready to play!

Try to find each ornament on the card. You can even cross them off with a pencil as you find them.

Once you've found all of them, move them around (while your little one covers their eyes) and play again!

This simple hunt is a great way to work on observation skills and visual discrimination skills!

Why are visual discrimination skills important for kids to develop?

Visual discrimination is the ability to recognize details in visual images. When kids are looking at the different ornaments, they analyze the colors, shapes, words, and designs that they see. They see differences and similarities in the ornaments and use what they see to help them figure out the right ornament to find.

Knowing how to see differences and similarities helps kids begin to understand their environment.

Visual discrimination becomes especially important as kids learn to read and write.

In order to write letters or read them, kids need to be able to tell that an "a" looks different from a "b" because of the shapes and lines that you see.

There are so many creative ways that kids can work on visual discrimination skills, and hunts like these are some of my favorite ways!

RELATED: Want to try more easy learning hunts? Here are our favorites.

Not only do games like this work on visual discrimination skills, but they also get kids moving around and building their language skills.

Christmas gives you a great opportunity to teach kids new words because there are so many new sights, sounds, and experiences they get to have!

As you're playing together, you can chat and model language by talking about what you see. Try to avoid just quizzing kids about what they see. Here are some examples of language you could model:

"The big sparkly star is yellow."

"Choo Choo! I found the train ornament."

"I see four snowflake ornaments... one...two...three... four."

There are so many fun Christmas activities out there to try! Here are more of our favorite 60+ easy to set up Christmas activities. You will love them!

Have you tried a Christmas tree ornament game like this before? Do you have a favorite ornament you can't wait to hide on your tree? Tell us about it!

Have older kids? This Christmas Tree I-Spy game from Joy in the Works could be fun to try.