It is important to stimulate children’s imagination from the very beginning, and to offer them a proper context for it; with crafts, they have not only a fun and entertaining activity, but they also learn coordination, they perfect their reasoning and connection-making and generally develop their intelligence. Furthermore, it is not difficult for parents to provide their kids with such activities, as there are many websites from where they can buy ribbons and bows online. Moreover, there are few, if any, rules in crafts, which is perfect for a developing brain, because it doesn’t have to be directed into one way or another. In what follows we are going to show you a few crafts for toddlers that will surely help them develop their abilities and imagination, and which they will have fun with.
Searching for crafts for toddlers is also a good opportunity for the parents to spend time with their children; they will need supervision anyway, especially for parts where cutting or gluing are necessary. That being said, make sure you always keep an eye on them, but that may not even be necessary because you’ll be having fun with them as well.
- Make your own play-dough. Everyone loves their play dough, and children of every generation have fun with it. You can make your own from powdered drink mixes, and it will be less toxic and even nice-smelling. Then you can grab some cookie shapes and start playing with your dough in any way you like.
- Hand-print paintings. It is common, especially in America, for children to paint turkeys based on the shapes of their hands on Thanksgiving; but since this isn’t relevant for everyone, you can teach your toddlers to make a tree out of a hand. Then, using cotton swabs, you can show them how to paint leafs on the tree, or flowers. This fun activity will delight your children!
- Paper collages. Colored paper can be found anywhere, perhaps you even have some laying around the house from other occasions. Take some and shred it into many pieces of various shapes and sizes; you will need some safe glue which is easy to apply and some cardboard or sheets of paper to use as canvas. Then you can challenge your kids to see who makes the most beautiful collage or mosaic, or who makes the best representation of an existing object. You can even use photos from magazines or other materials to make your collages, there is no limit here.
- Wood block stamps. When our generation was young, playing with wooden blocks was very common and loved, but today children have more complex and intelligent toys. This doesn’t mean that they can’t be used anymore though, as you can use them to make prints. Their various shapes and sizes can help the children create their own abstract paintings. You just have to make sure the paint is placed in wide and low containers that can’t spill easily. This one can get messy, so watch out!
- Negative paint impressions. It is true that most crafts for toddlers revolve around paint, but there are so many fun things you can do with it! Take for example the negative impression, which is interesting and challenging. You take an object, like a leaf, and place it on your piece of paper; then you paint over it, over its edges as well, or spray it somehow, preferably outdoors. You then have the negative impression of a leaf, and an interesting perspective to your painting.
These crafts for toddlers are only the beginning of what you can do with your kids; as long as you use your imagination, you can create an infinity of beautiful projects using paint, glue, wood, dough, ribbons, colored paper, seeds of all kinds that can be used as mosaics and many others. As mentioned above, there are now plenty of platforms for you to buy ribbons and bows online, as well as many other types of crafts supplies.
