Craft time is a wonderful way to reduce screen time and get your child’s brain thinking creatively. Some kids are more into it than others, so it’s about finding the right activities that get your child excited. It can help to get in there and craft with them, at least to get them started.
Not all craft ideas have to mean excessive amounts of mess—some activities are super simple. Here’s a range of ideas—both simple and a little more in-depth—to help get both you and your child excited about craft.
Fairy garden
Combine craft and outdoors time by building your very own fairy garden. Create a little sanctuary that entices fairies into your garden and watch the joy and wonder on your child’s face. Either grab a pot or planter full of soil and sparse greenery (like a potted moss or flowers) or carve out a little corner in your landscaping. You might like to get a little wooden house or even just build a tepee out of sticks for the fairies to sleep in. Add a handful of crystals, glass gems or pebbles and a sprinkling of glitter (ahem, pixie dust), and you’ve got yourself a bona fide fairy garden!
Flying school
Who didn’t love paper aeroplanes when they were growing up? Show your kids how to fold their own planes out of paper and challenge them to see how far they can fly. You can even cut some circles into pieces of cardboard to act as targets for them to fly their planes through. Make the holes different sizes and give them more points for being able to fly their planes through the smaller hole.
Story stones
This is a fun and multifaceted craft activity that encourages creativity. Take your kids out on an adventure to find stones that they can paint on. Ideally these stones are smooth and flat and about the size of your palm. Once you’ve found the perfect stones, take them home and get them to paint whatever image they want on them. It works best if you get involved too. Once all the stones have been painted, the images of the stones transform into characters from a story that everyone can tell together.
Masks
Paper plates are simply turned into a multitude of characters. You will literally need a handful of paper plates, some elastic to fix it around the head, paints and scissors. If you want to take it a little further, you can grab things like feathers and glitter. Some ideas include animal masks, the very hungry caterpillar or their favourite superhero. Alternatively, you might like to teach your kids about emotions by getting them to draw faces that depict feelings such as happy, sad or angry while talking them through what these emotions are and what happens when we feel them.
Hand cards
Tracing your own hand is a childhood staple. Turn it into a cute card by cutting around the traced edges of both hands (so you have two hand cards) and glue them together with a strip of concertina folded paper (you’ll need at least 11 spaces). Write “I love you” onto one of the hand cut outs and “this much” across the concertina folds. When pulled apart, it will say “I love you this much” and makes the perfect craft gift for Mother’s or Father’s Day or birthdays.
Painted pasta craft
Uncooked pasta is a great medium for a whole bunch of craft projects. Wagon wheels, penne and rigatoni (essentially anything hollow or with holes) are great for making tiaras, necklaces and hairclips. Alternatively, get a variety of pasta pieces and make oversized cards, posters or plaques. Aside from pasta, you’ll need some paints, paper, glue and any other crafty pieces like glitter, rhinestones or cotton balls to jazz up their work.
