Craft Ideas for Kids

Pre-school crafts

It can be difficult to come up with crafts that very young children can take part in. Of course coloring and painting immediately come to mind. Have lots of coloring books and blank paper available for your young ones, as well as a variety of crayons, markers, paints, gel pens and other materials.

Preschool aged children can use safety scissors, so think about projects that involve both drawing and simple cutting, like tracing their hands and cutting them out to make a wreath of hands (each hand can be decorated separately and then glued or taped together). Other simple designs like hearts and stars can be cut out and decorated for holidays. Look for Kids Paper Crafts for more projects you can do with preschool aged kids.

Another good idea is using stickers, which come in just about any design you could want, to decorate things like a special sign for the child’s door, a picture frame or a holiday card for grandma.

Kids of this age love music, so help them make simple musical instruments such as the famous shoe box guitar (made by stretching rubber bands around an open box) or a shaker made of a paper towel roll filled with beans. Put waxed paper on the ends, secured with rubber bands, and let the child decorate it and play it, too.

School-aged crafts

As your children go off to school, they will learn new skills rapidly. Now you can add crafts that require more precision, such as decorating glass ball ornaments to put on the Christmas tree, making cut-out snowflakes or jack-o-lanterns, even doing paint-by-number ornaments.

Kids in school can help with baking (if supervised and kept away from sharp knives and the heat of the stove) or make up a batch of hot chocolate mix to give to his or her teachers as a special gift. They can string simple jewelry, decorate a T-shirt, or use paint pens and glitter to make a special candle holder.

Older kids can start doing cross stitch with special kits designed for kids that use plastic needles and have big squares. It’s great to teach late elementary-aged kids how to knit or crochet, since these are crafts that don’t use sharp instruments. With supervision, kids this age can also start using the sewing machine for simple straight sewing.

Crafts for older kids

When your children are in junior high and older, there’s really no limit to the crafts they can do. If you are there to guide them, kids this age can start making candles and soap (especially melt and pour soap). They can bake or make food gifts on their own or with a little supervision.

More difficult patterns of cross stitch are now possible, and they can start using sharper needles (with a warning that they really can make you bleed). Kids of this age might want to start sewing clothes, and they can make more complicated knitted or crocheted items. They probably have the patience for simple beaded jewelry and might be interested in starting scrapbooks to remember their school days.

The important thing when planning crafts for kids of this age is to really pay attention to what they want to do and what they like to do. It’s great to encourage kids to try new things, but you don’t want to make it torturous. Just because knitting is your favorite pastime, doesn’t mean your daughter (or son) will love it.

Give them time to explore what kinds of crafts they would like to do. You may find you have a budding painter on your hands when you really wanted him to love decoupage. We can’t make our kids like what we want them to like; the important thing is to keep a lot of options open and continue to try new things and be enthusiastic about crafting with your kids and letting them try things they express interest in. It may just be that crafting is the only thing you have in common as your child turns into a teenager, and you’ll want that common ground to fall back on.

Benefits of crafting for kids

Crafting is great because it gives kids a creative outlet, allowing them to learn about trying new things and making mistakes in a low-pressure environment. Depending on the craft, it can help kids with math, and almost all crafts help with following directions and logical order.

Crafts can help with spatial development and a child’s sense of color. They give kids the confidence to start a project and see it through to the end. Crafting can teach kids to be generous, especially when crafts are made to be given as gifts or donated to those less fortunate. And crafting provides a way for two (or more) generations to work together, providing memories that will last two lifetimes. What better reason to craft with your kids?

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