Crafting is an enjoyable and creative way for children to express themselves, engaging them in creative thinking while improving fine motor skills, stimulating imagination and self-esteem.
Crafting may be messy, but its worth it to see the pride in their face when they finish creating something amazing! Check out the following craft ideas for an engaging, enjoyable, and beneficial crafting experience.
1. Paper Plate Boats
Paper plate crafts can help unleash creativity while developing fine motor skills in kids, as well as increasing color recognition. Add fish stickers for an added fun boost.
If you’re searching for an easy craft activity for kids to enjoy outdoors in the heat of summer, this one should definitely top your list. No need for extensive materials – plus it helps develop scissor skills!
Use this craft as an opportunity to teach your kids about plastic and aluminum foil materials, like those found in juice boxes that feature an outer lining made up of these two substances so it doesn’t leak from within. Make comparisons between their paper boat design and that of an actual juice box containing an aluminum-foil layer to protect its contents from leakage, and this one!
This resource features instructions with clear instructions and illustrated pages to support visual learners. Ideal for kindergarten and preschool aged children. You could incorporate it as part of summer or transportation themed lesson plans.
2. Paper Flowers
Paper crafts are an excellent way for kids to develop fine motor skills. This easy flower craft for kids only requires colored paper and scissors (ideally kid-safe ones)! Your children can then unleash their creative side as they color it with different hues to create something truly one-of-a-kind and beautiful!
Alternately, they could cut small circles slightly larger than pennies from colored paper to create petals for their flower. Once cut out and assembled with glue dots for more realistic looks, they could glue each petal in turn onto another over time until finished with adding stem and leaves to complete their project.
This paper craft is perfect for toddlers and preschoolers, helping to foster fine motor skill development and enhance visual perception. Additionally, the final product looks impressive and will definitely brighten their room!
Paper poppies are another fun flower craft to do with kids, using either red or green colored paper for maximum impact. To create one, children need a 10-inch square piece of paper folded diagonally into triangle shape before cutting petal-shaped pieces from it to glue onto one another before attaching a stem for their poppie creations.
3. Paper Chains
Paper chains are one of the classic and easy craft projects for kids, perfect for building social skills while teaching bilateral symmetry (the same on both sides). This activity also doubles up as an entertaining lesson about bilateral symmetry!
Cut strips of colored paper and fold them into circles before stapling their ends together to form chains of paper rings. Children can add personal touches by embellishing their paper rings with stickers, drawings or words using crayons – add their personal touch!
These colourful paper chains make great decorations for parties, birthdays and holidays. Simply hang one on a wall or doorway to set the right atmosphere in any room – they even serve as countdown timers!
Paper chains can also be used as learning aids in classroom and student-led learning activities. For instance, students could receive a paper chain link whenever they’re caught doing good work or demonstrating positive character traits – this way the class-wide chain could grow longer by week’s end! Furthermore, students could use them to work on number sequencing by counting the links and placing them into order in sequence.
4. Paper Dolls
Paper dolls are timeless toys that take us back to simpler times. Additionally, paper dolls make for a fantastic craft to do with children that promote manual dexterity while teaching about history, cultures and fashion!
To create paper dolls, simply download or use an image of a person that’s large enough to trace onto cardstock paper and carefully cut out their body and outfits. Kids can color these with markers, pencils or crayons if available.
Children love paper dolls for many reasons: it engages their imagination, builds social skills through encouraging empathy and can even help reduce back-to-school anxiety by giving children something constructive to do with their time. Furthermore, this form of quiet play encourages patience while teaching creativity in times of boredom or frustration – life skills that will come in handy in later life and so paper dolls make an excellent back to school craft! For this reason alone paper dolls make great back-to-school craft options!
5. Paper Cups
Make these easy paper cups to serve drinks, snacks or small items at parties and help protect the environment by opting for this eco-friendly alternative to plastic cups – plus they’re quick and simple to create!
To create these paper cups, first fold a sheet of paper into a crease running from one corner to the center of its opposite edge. Next, take one of the top corners and fold it to form a triangle before doing this again for all four top corners.
This process encourages creativity, artistic taste and fine motor skills development in kids. Additionally, following instructions helps develop their capacity for future projects and teaches them there may be multiple methods for doing crafts; theirs may not always be the most efficient route.
Crafting is also great way to increase working memory and cognitive skills, such as thinking through what supplies they’ll need for their project, how it should go together, and the final look. Crafting can also strengthen hand-eye coordination through straight cutting or coloring in lines; all of which will come in handy later in life.
7. Paper Cactus
This distinctive-looking cactus stands out as something special: not just an attention-getter but an expression of resilience. Caring for this prickly plant can become an exercise in stress relief that brings serenity into any room in your home. Plus, its minimalist yet modern aesthetic blends perfectly.
Sclerocactus papyracanthus, native to Argentina and classified as a subspecies or variety of the Tephrocactus articulatus cacti, can be identified by its distinctive spines which feature blueish-green coloring with papery or parchment texture; giving this plant its unique appearance and name.
Paper spine cacti are excellent succulent plants to grow in dry soil; water sparingly to avoid overwatering. In order for it to bloom successfully, ensure as much sunlight as possible hits its location (ideally within one foot of a south-facing window is recommended for optimal results).
This cacti is easily propagated via stem cuttings, segments or offsets, as well as being easy to repot – simply do so when its root mass reaches either the bottom of its pot or doubles in size–whichever comes first. To minimize fungal disease risks, fertilize sparingly with slow-release fertilizer products triannually and use only slow release products when fertilizing sparingly.