New Year's Eve Activities for Kids: 10 Ideas with Free Printables

Midnight is a long way off for a six-year-old. A few planned activities — one every hour, a short countdown, something quiet before bed — make New Year's Eve fun for kids without anyone staying up too late. Here are ten New Year's Eve activities for kids, each with a free page you can print today.

In short: fill countdown bags with one activity per hour, hold a noon countdown for little ones, solve the New Year's Eve and New Year wishes word searches, play bingo with confetti markers, and save coloring pages for the quiet hour. Every printable here is in our free winter printables, with answers and no sign-up.

1. Countdown bags, one per hour

Number some paper bags or envelopes — 6, 7, 8, 9 o'clock — and put one activity in each, plus a small treat or a noisemaker. Kids open a bag on the hour, which turns the evening into its own countdown.

A good order is something active first, then puzzles, then a quiet page for the last bag:

• Bag 1: a dot-to-dot for ages 4–7.
• Bag 2: a shaped maze — snowman, cocoa mug, bear or owl.
• Bag 3: a New Year's Eve word search.
• Bag 4: a coloring page and a few crayons.

2. A noon countdown for little ones

Young children can count down to 12 noon instead of midnight: count backwards from 10, throw paper confetti, make some noise and have lunch. It gives them the moment without the late night, and the evening can stay calm.

3. The New Year's Eve word search

The New Year's Eve puzzle has countdown, confetti, fireworks, midnight, resolution, calendar, streamers and more, in a large print 12 × 12 grid. Answers are at the back of the PDF.

4. New Year wishes, then write your own

The New Year wishes word search has hope, goals, fresh start, kindness, family, friends, dreams and plans. When it is solved, give each child a card to write or draw three wishes for the new year. Keep the cards somewhere safe and open them next December.

5. Bingo with confetti markers

The winter bingo cards are 30 different cards with winter words and a caller sheet. Let kids take turns as the caller, and use paper confetti, buttons or pom-poms as markers. Bingo at the stroke of an hour is a nice way to open a countdown bag.

6. Mazes for the restless half hour

Shaped mazes — a snowman, cocoa mug, cozy house, owl, bear — are quick wins for ages 6 and up; the first five are easy and the last five a little harder. More are in the printable mazes, from easy to hard.

7. Dot-to-dot pictures

Connect-the-dots pages with 25 to 40 dots suit ages 4–7, and the finished picture can be colored in. There are more levels — alphabet, count by 2s, 120 dots — in the printable dot-to-dot pages.

8. Code-breaking for older kids

Cryptograms swap every letter for another; kids crack the code to reveal the line. Two in the winter set are about the new year: Tennyson's "Ring out the old, ring in the new" and the first line of "Auld Lang Syne". Solve them before midnight and sing the song at midnight. More are in the printable cryptograms.

9. A quiet coloring hour

Before bed — or before midnight for older kids — hand out coloring pages and lower the lights. The winter set has six-sided mandalas that look like snowflakes and designs inside a star, moon and cloud. More designs are in the printable mandalas.

10. Make a family word search

Ask everyone for one word that sums up their year — a trip, a new pet, a friend's name — and turn the list into a word search with the free word search maker. Print a copy for each person and solve it together on New Year's Day.

Printing tips

• Print on US Letter at actual size, or on A4 with "Fit" selected.
• Answers are always at the back of each PDF; print them separately for the grown-ups.
• Print a few extra pages: someone always wants another maze.
• Card stock or sheet protectors let you reuse bingo cards.

Where to get the printables

Everything in this article is in the free winter printables: ten large print word searches (including New Year's Eve and New Year wishes), 30 winter bingo cards with a caller sheet, mazes, dot-to-dot pictures, mandala coloring pages and cryptograms — 93 pages with answers. Download one set or every page in one PDF; no account or email is needed. Grandparents in the family might enjoy the ideas in winter activities for seniors too.