Why Do Crafts?

What's in it for you and your kids apart from just another mess to clean up?

Half term arrived last week with as little notice as it always does. Suddenly I had a whole week ahead of me with very little planned. The kids love to play around in their pajamas most of the morning at the weekends so our half term started like this. I actually think it's more me that feels we need to 'do' something and so each day I suggested we make something. I'll post the pictures but its not actually what we made that I want to talk about. I think a lot of parents struggle to do crafts. Maybe they're not so creative themselves, maybe they hate the mess, maybe they feel its not worth the hassle or maybe they feel their kids need to use up their energy moving around. However, I think any child at any age can enjoy being creative.

Is it worth the hassle? What are the benefits? What are the benefits? Well apart from the obvious development of fine motor skills, hand eye coordination and building creativity it helps children's concentration skills, and skills in planning (sometimes!). More importantly though making things builds confidence and gives children awareness of their own abilities. As last week also showed my kids, we don't need to go to a store and buy another toy; we can make a new toy out of some socks, old buttons, a glue gun and a cardboard box. What did we make? Sock puppets and a puppet theatre!

Allow kids freedom Another thing I aim for when we do crafts is to allow my kids as much freedom as possible in the design and execution of whatever we are making. Many adults control or lead their children to do things their way. Kids need a chance to learn things for themselves and how can they be proud of the finished piece if they didn't actually do it themselves? We can also too easily forget that kids see the world differently from us. We can actually learn from them or gain an insight into their world if we allow them freedom. Actually in the case of the sock puppets I let them do the first one themselves and the second one we did my way with a proper mouth that you could open and close with your hand.

How long to spend? I've done a lot of crafts over the years, during my time as a teacher and also as a mother. The best crafts usually do not take longer than 10 or 15 minutes for children under 5. They would allow a certain amount of freedom and not take too long to dry or be ready to play with. Sock puppets were perfect. The hot glue dried in minutes and they could play with them straight away. The theater wasn't so good. It took ages to make and I was busy with the curtains so I couldn't help them paint the theater. Then it took ages to dry. The clean up was also a pain so I ended up being away from the kids for a long time at the end too. I have quite a few more crafts in mind coming up so check back soon!

Keep a basic stash What do you keep in your stash? Well basics for me are paper, colored and plain, origami paper, paints of many colors, glue (stick, hot glue, superglue), sponges, things to decorate pictures and things you make such as sparkles, glitter, pipe cleaners. Recently we also got into mod podge and i'll be writing about that soon. The most important thing is to buy things that have multi use and are safe for kids to use by themselves - feathers, pom moms etc are good too. Enjoy and try to not worry about the mess!

Crafts can be very benefitial to children, and, lets face it, you can stay home in your pajamas a little while longer!

Get Inspired

I will be posting crafts on a weekly basis. It won't always involve glue, glitter and all things messy. Keep updated by signing up and I guarantee you will find something that suits!

Good luck!