craft for little kids?

[lissylee]

anyone have any fun easy crafts you've done with young ones? I babysit girls that are 4 years old and I think they are getting tired of just colouring.
Got any cute projects you've done??? Any picts in your gallery???

[mpatry]

FamilyFun.com is one of my go to sites for crafts ideas. Here's a link to the crafts geared towards ages 4-5:

http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/crafts-by-age/specialfeature/kids-crafts-4-5-years/kids-crafts-4-5-years.html

[Teresa]

You could try Martha Stewart's kids crafts section- here (http://www.marthastewart.com/crafts-for-kids?lnc=bf89cf380e1dd010VgnVCM1000005b09a00aRCRD&rsc=leftnav_crafts_crafts). I think she has a kids craft "mini" magazine out right now, or at least it was there a few weeks ago at the grocery store. :)

[Tracyfish]

Here's a few we've done...I help with the "lesson plans" that we do each week for our playgroup so that the moms have ideas to do at home to a related letter or theme of the week.

Dragonflies:
Tempera paints
Water
Paint pans
Eyedroppers
Coffee filters
Clothespins
Pipe cleaners
String

Add water to the tempera paint to water it down.
Pour the thinned paint into paint pans
Use the eyedropper to drip paint onto the coffee filter. Watch how the colors spread.
After the coffee filter dries, gather filter in the middle and clip w/ clothespin.
Add pipe cleaner for antenna and string for hanging.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v206/Tracyfish/100_4289.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v206/Tracyfish/100_4303.jpg

K is for kitchen
Have children glue cutouts of a stove/oven and refrigerator on a piece of paper. Make the cutouts have an overlay so that the oven door and fridge door can open. Cut out pictures from magazines of food items to glue on the inside......or have the children draw the items.

Feet Painting
Put a large sheet of paper on the floor, and let the kids step in paint. Walk across the paper, step into a bucket of water to rinse your feet off. Use the paper as gift wrap.
https://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/inspiration/data/576/TDC-Funky-Feet.jpg (https://www.sweetshoppedesigns.com/inspiration/showphoto.php?photo=39570&ppuser=1499)

Flower Painting
Pick some flowers from your garden or buy some. Put paint in a pie tin and let your child use the flowers to paint - they can use them like brushes or stamps.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v206/Tracyfish/100_4648-1.jpg

Eggshell Tulips:
Supplies: Eggshells (or foam egg carton sections), green pipe cleaners, tempera paint and markers, hot glue or white glue

Clean eggshell halves and dry them gently. Or, for an easier craft with more durable flowers, use foam egg carton sections. Cut the cartons sections to look like a tulip.

Using tempera paint, decorate the shells to look like tulips. Let the paint dry overnight. When the paint is completely dry, add details to the tulips using markers.

Twirl one end of a green pipe cleaner into a spiral shape (this will be glued onto the base of the tulip).
Glue the spiral to the tulip (if using white glue, let it set for a few hours).

Growing Grass
Dampen a sponge and then put grass seed on the top of it. Next pour water over the sponge let your children watch as the grass grows over the next few weeks. This one will take some time, but it's interesting.

[alansrock]

I have 4-yr old twin boys and we are always crafting something!

Some great ideas already, but I will chime in with this site that has some really great seasonal crafts too:

http://www.123child.com/UBB/forumdisplay.php?f=15

And this is a cute idea for seasonal too:
http://www.littlegiraffes.com/handprintcalendar.html

For this month's theme craft we did the homemade salt dough thing...the recipe is 2 Tablesooons flour, 1 tablespoon salt and 1 tablespoon water (I think I doubled this twice for the 2 ornaments I made). Rolled out the dough and cut shapes with cookie cutters. Then you bake at 250 for 3-4 hrs and then let cool and paint. Great idea to make magnets or ornaments with!

HTH!

[lissylee]

thank you so much for the ideas! love that dragonfly thing! I'll have to check out those links too:thumbup:

[AmyM]

Our crafts usually aren't too pretty, but they're fun LOL. We find random junk around the house to use. If you have a Ratatouille lover-
my daughter took my coffee filters and made her Remy doll some chef hats. Coffee filters, magic markers, and tape- can't beat that! :D
Another fav thing to do is a collage so she can be scrapping like mom. ;) Just get some old magazines, scissors, glue and let the kids go nuts. A big piece of poster paper, we can find the white kind at the dollar store for less than a dollar.
Pirate telescope- just save the paper towel roll and decorate it with whatever
cardboard box- again, decorate with random junk LOL makes a wonderful stuffed animal house.
Those aren't too witty or pretty but hey, it's stuff you usually already have around the house and it's cheap. Most kids are pretty easy to please in the craft department. Just let them get messy and they're happy. LOL

[Kimberly's Mommy]

Oriental Trading has some cute stuff. I got a bunch of different things for Kim to do a few months ago.

[cindyg]

We get tons of "fun foam" things at the craft store. Just need glue and they can make all sorts of things. You can buy buckets of shapes, alphas, etc and they can put stuff together. Its also fun to get a bunch of random stuff like stickers, glitter glue, construction paper, sequins, pipe cleaners, etc..... and just let them go to town and make whatever they want.