Saturday, November 5, 2011

Simple Crafting Projects For Young Children


Crafting with children is a fantastic indoor activity that keeps them focussed, entertained and exploring their creativity. There are so many great ideas for simple straight forward projects for youngsters, and a lot of them can be done with materials that most of us have in our homes already. I want to share three of the biggest hits with my kids, very few of the materials in these projects would need to be purchased, and if you already craft at home chances are you will have all of them. I picked all three of these projects and called them "hits" because they are all creating something they can enjoy playing with after they have created them. These projects seem to suit children from ages 3 to about 6 although it really depends on the child some children may become bored too quickly and need something more challenging, and yet others may find them to be a little too challenging. If you give them a try you will be able to see what level of complexity your child is best with.

1. Finger glove puppets - Materials needed: One old finger glove, bobbely eyes, or beans or stickers to use for eyes, a pompom, cotton, or bead for a nose, yarn or marker for the mouth, scissors and white glue. Process: Cut the fingers off of the glove for individual puppets or if you prefer leave the glove as is and make the glove into an entire family of puppets on one hand. Cutting the fingers off of the glove may cause them to fray or unravel, you (the adult) can use a hot glue gun to run a ring of glue around the frayed edge just before it hardens squish the edge between your thumb and finger to flatten the glue and push it into the fabric. This will stop the fraying but please be careful not to do it while the glue is still hot. Next the children create their puppet by glueing on their faces and they can even design little ties or shirts to glue on them, or use yarn to make hair. You can even create a mini puppet show out of a cereal box. Then play puppets and have fun!

2. Paper plate masks - Materials needed: small paper plates, markers, sparkles and glue, or sparkle glue, feathers are always fun, popsicle stick or elastic, construction paper, scissors, tape. Process: Cut eyes, nose and a mouth out of the paper plate, children decorate however they like making them bright and colourful or monster like, whatever they choose is an expression of their creativity, encourage it. When they have finished decorating you can either tape a popsicle stick to one side of the mask for them to hold up to their face or you can punch two holes in the plate and tie an elastic to it that will wrap around the back of their heads to keep the masks on. Have a costume party!

3. Shiny cardboard crowns - Materials needed: empty cereal box or other cardboard, tin foil, beads, shinny paper cut into geometric shapes, plastic gems, pieces of old or plastic jewelry, painted macaroni, basically anything they can glue onto the crown to make it look flashy or bright and fun, scissors, glue and tape. Process: cut out the shape of a crown from a cereal box leaving the sides long enough to wrap around the back of your childs head and connect, cover the entire crown with tin foil and glue or tape into place, next let the children decorate as they please with all the decorations you have gathered, when the glue is dry connect the ends together in the back with tape or staples. Play kings and queens and rule the castle!

All three of these projects can be altered a little here and there to be more complex with more supplies offered and more detail put into them, or simplified by the adult doing some of the basics first and just allowing the child to turn it into their own masterpiece with decorations.




For Pictures of these three projects completed and many other ideas and fun stuff related to kids crafts visit http://crafts4kids-letsgetmessy.blogspot.com/

Crafts for kids - Lets Get Messy! Offers great projects, suggestions, supplies, and resources! It is a fun and visually stimulating site with color photos posted with every craft project.

Looking for a great resource for everyday parenting and all things closely related? A compilation of tips and "what worked for me" advice, as well as my own discoveries that I have encountered in my years as a mom. http://ourchildrenourchallenge.blogspot.com




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