If your preschooler no longer naps and/or if preschool is just a few days a week, you have hours and hours that need to be filled with activities. When the weather does not cooperate, you often have the other half of the day to get busy. Yes, there are plenty of places to go even in bad weather but you need other options, right? A great activity with kids is crafting. It can be done at your own place or together with other moms in a play group. You will be amazed how quickly your little toddler or preschooler will respond to arts and crafts and his little projects will just make your heart melt. If you are new to crafting, here’s all you need to know.
The right age
Truth is, there is minimum age for crafts – kids are naturally drawn to art from the first time they squish the baby food on the tray. There are simple things that you can do with the smallest ones – from vegetable prints (dip slice of veggie into colorful juice and print on paper) to filling up a tube with pasta to make shakers, to sticking felt on con-tact paper. While toddlers as young as 18 months can start on crafting the above and beyond, they are closer to 3 years old when their crafting abilities skyrocket. A definite help is improved communication, so you can discuss the project and talk about it; plus the dexterity to use the scissors, glue, along with the now safe stickers and glitter. Crafting is fun at a very young age, but there are more projects do to as your little ones get older.
What you need for crafting
Before you set out on your crafting project, stock up on the basic supplies. You can get them at most department stores, like Target or Walmart, or at any arts & crafts store like Michael’s with a more extensive selection. I actually prefer the specialized crafts stores, since the sheer variety of art products often sparks our project ideas. Before you proceed with a project, have a bowl of water ready along with some paper towels.
Basic Crafting supplies
- Safety scissors. Kids younger than 4 may need extra direction with these. School-age kids should be fine with regular scissors.
- Glue stick. Some glue sticks are not as strong as white glue, so to avoid getting multiple kinds, I like using glue stick for photo paper – it’s extra strong and easy to apply.
- Paper – 1 set each of: construction paper (pick multi-colored set), tissue paper, foam paper and origami paper. If you have extra scraps of wallpaper and wrapping paper, there are crafts you can do with that too.
- Your favorite art supplies: crayons, markers, paints.
- Sparkle: glitter, stickers and dot markers
- Ribbon or yarn.
- Odds and ends: saved cardboard tubes and rolls, boxes, jars, plastic bottles, etc. Basically if you are going to throw something inedible away, consider if it could be used in a future craft project and save if the answer is yes.
- A large box to hold all these supplies (or spend extra on a craft table you can also use for painting.
Benefits of Crafting
Spending time together for kids and parents is the biggest benefit to crafting. Other benefits include:
- Improved dexterity as your preschooler learns to fold and manipulate paper, use scissors and ribbons
- Improved communication as you talk through each project and decide on each step
- Blossoming creativity as your little one is visualizing new crafts
- Better analytic skills after following directions for each project
- More patience and discipline
Find a variety of craft projects for your preschooler in our Crafting section!
