I'm just looking for bright and fun crafts I can make with a four year old without doing the whole project for him. Also I'm looking for projects that don't have small or toxic parts so the one year old can be involved. Neat outdoor themes would be great! And educational crafts that teach about wind, rain, sun and other related subjects. Any ideas? We are looking forward to a busy summer of learning and creating.
Shanny Allen
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Take a pinecone, spread peanut butter on it, then roll it in bird seed. Hang it in a tree with some string. Kids love to watch the birds eat off their birdfeeder!
I have a daycare in my home and one project we did this week was a spring tree. Paint the child's hand and inside of arm up to the elbow with brown paint. Then have them lay their arm and hand down on white paper with fingers spread wide. The arm is the tree trunk and the fingers are the branches. We popped popcorn and glued onto the tree to make a Bradford Pear tree. You could also color the popcorn by placing in a ziploc with paint and shaking. They came out very pretty. We used crumpled up tissue paper (tiny pieces) for the leaves.
I let my kids use shaving cream on the formica table and the picnic table with a vinyl taple over, draw pictures, practice writing names, it dries quick and is an easier than expected clean up, buy the cheap stuff,
that is pretty cool and all but another cool idea is for mothers day or any type ofday you cold let them decorate a pot and by like some impationts(flowers) and plant it in the pot for any time thing.
I've heard you could finger paint with pudding(different flavors, or colored with food coloring), but would this teach the younger ones that paint is edible?
Make your own Breakfast:
Get a cheese triangle box (We get Dairy Lea triangles here) and use one side of it. Any other circular flat carton will do.
Cut pictures of eggs, bacon etc out of magazines. I printed pictures off my computer, and there was great hilarity when they discovered one of the 'sausages' had a bite out if it.
Cut a strip of card for a handle.
Let the children glue the handle on the edge, and the food inside.
Because we cook with gas in England I cut triangles of red and yellow crepe, you could use tissue, and glued them underneath the box round the edge for the flames.
I did this for the kids in our Parent and toddler group. I had all the pieces ready cut out and gave them each a box, which they coloured in with wax chubby crayons. Then they glued it all together and ended up with a frying pan full of breakfast and they absolutely loved it. They range from 9 months to 3 years old.
Make your own Pond:
Get a cheese triangle box (We get Dairy Lea triangles here) and use one side of it. Any other circular flat carton will do.
Cut a circle of blue paper to fit inside for water.
Cut thin strips of wavy green paper for pond weed.
Cut out pictures of fish.
Let the child glue the blue paper in the box. Glue just the end of the green strips on the blue, so it sticks up like weed.
Glue the fish to the blue paper. Very small fish can be glued to the weed.
did this for the kids in our Parent and toddler group. I had all the pieces ready cut out and gave them each a box, which they coloured in with wax chubby crayons. Then they glued it all together and were delighted with their ponds.I found sone tiny paper stickers of seahorses so our ponds all had seahorses in them. The kids range from 9 months to 3 years old.
Another fun project is a home made tambourine. Use a heavy duty paper plate, punch about 6-8 holes around it's outer rim. Using colored "jingle bells" (available at all craft stores) secure with colored pipe cleaners. The kids can also decorate the plate as they wish. If you can make a drum with an old oat meal container. You have an instant musical duo! Fun, fast, & no mess!
Did you mean holiday gifts? I'm Quaker, and our meetinghouse does a "simple gifts" event for the kids each year, they make things to give as presents. I'm not sure what they're doing this year, but some projects in the past have been: cutting red felt into mitten shapes, with a white felt stripe for the "cuff" (you can even pre-cut the cuff, just let the kids cut along the line for the mitten) punch a hole and thread green ribbon through for a door-ornament-- that was one project. The pinecone-birdseed is another good one. Decorating those wooden picture frames is good, then the child gives the frame with a photo in it (my son is giving pictures of himself *with* each of the grandparents to the grandparents) -- simple wood frames should cost around a dollar each, some at Jo-Ann fabric store are shaped as ornaments and are on sale right now. Non-toxic poster paint are needed. Oh -- and stamps! We're big on stamps, ever since I got this little foam set that has all the upper and lowercase letters, it's in a typewriter-font, and the letters are maybe an inch high or so. Perfect for stamping out "Auntie Kim" or "my pal Jake" on a picture frame. Hope this helps you, dear!
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How can you make fun and easy crafts for a two year old?
By Lindsey S
Here's links to some clever ideas for your child:
www.mainstreetmom.com/
www.stretcher.com/
www.2coolbaby.com/
An idea I think would be fun is to have the child lay down on top of large poster board or cardboard; then draw the outline of the child's whole body. Cut out the cardboard frame with exacto knife or box cutter and using colors of construction paper, cut out what the child is wearing and decorate accordingly. Paste it to the cardboard figure and draw face on the head or use a photo of the child's face and enlarge it at a print shop and glue onto the head.
