Arts & Crafts
Arts & Crafts ideas for children aged 2 to 8.
Craft activities have a beginning, a middle and something to show at the end, which makes them satisfying in a way open-ended play is not. They are also where most of the mess lives, so every activity here says up front how much and what to put down first.
The materials are deliberately ordinary: paper, tape, glue, cardboard tubes, paper plates, an egg box. If something needs a specific supply — googly eyes, pipe cleaners, a particular paint — it is listed at the top, before the steps, so you can decide before you have started.
Expect the finished thing to look nothing like the picture, and let it. The point is the twenty minutes of cutting and sticking, not the tiger.
Activities
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Paper Plate Animal Masks
One paper plate, some paint and a lolly stick. Twenty minutes of making and an afternoon of being a tiger.
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Mixing Colours Without the Mess
Two blobs of paint sealed in a freezer bag. They squash it, the colour changes, and nothing gets on anything.
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Printing Your Own Wrapping Paper
A halved potato, a shape cut into it, and a roll of plain paper. It looks far better than it has any right to.