Simple crafts at home for children
If you find yourself at odds trying to keep up with kids in the house, especially when you’re trying to work from home, you’re not alone! Making sure children are being homeschooled, entertained, happy, healthy, and feeling safe all at the same time is no easy task. To help out, we’re sharing our most loved simple crafts to do at home with small children.
Grow celery from a glass jar
Harvesting new celery from the bottom of a whole bunch is easy and satisfying for children. It takes place fast enough to start seeing results overnight!
Take a bunch of celery and slice off two inches from the root at the bottom. Fill a glass jar with water and submerge the root into the bottom. If you like, you can insert toothpicks to the sides if you think it needs support, this can also give more space for the roots to grow.
Place the jar in an area that will receive sufficient natural light such as a kitchen window.
After a couple of days, you will start seeing small leaves sprouting from the very center of the top. After a week, you will see small stalks and leaves. The cut stalks around the outer base may start deteriorating and turning brown. Don’t worry—this is normal. However, if you leave the celery in water for too much longer, the outer stalks will get serious rot, so it’s best to plant before that happens.
You can plant your new celery in potting soil or directly into your garden. If you use potting soil, choose a mix without pesticides suitable for vegetables and herbs. Make a hole deep and wide enough to hold the plant from the root end up to the cut end. Set the celery into the soil, making sure there’s no air pocket below the root end. Gently fill in and tamp the surrounding soil so a bit of the cut end and all of the emerging leaves and stalks are above the soil. Keep the soil moist but not wet.
Basic Coloring and Drawing
What better way to get the creativity going than getting out coloring pencils, crayons, markers and pens and giving your children a blank canvas? Whether you draw household items, family members, or make doodles of flowers and cartoon characters for your kids to color in themselves – there are lots of ways to make drawing interesting or make it a challenge.
Rainbow drawings can be a fun way of doing this. Every parent knows that children are taken with colors and this is a sure way to hold their attention. First, take a blank page and fill it with rainbow color stripes until no white remains. Then, flip it over face down on another blank white piece of paper.
On the reverse of the sheet that you have just filled with colors, have your children draw what they wish with a pencil or pen. When finished, simply peel the sheet back and reveal their multi coloured drawings! If you need a demonstration, you can find one here.
If you don’t have time to do rainbow colors, don’t forget coloring books. These can be a great way to keep children calm and focused if you need an activity to give you some time to work, prepare dinner or take care of some other household activities for a few minutes. You can even find virtual coloring books that can be done online using tablets!
Make potato stamps
Fun for both grown-ups and children, making potato stamps is both a simple craft and a great way of decorating. Print greetings cards, make patterns, create homemade gift wrapping paper or embellish book covers. It’s best to stick with simple shapes, even these can be used to make a special and creative scene.
Take a potato and cut it in half. On the surface, draw your desired shape with a pencil or marker. Take a knife and cut around this shape so that is left raised on the surface. Pour some paint into a saucer and gently dab the potato stamp in, trying to ensure an even coating. If you have too much paint on the surface, it will affect the print so it’s best to do your first stamp on a piece of scrap paper to remove any excess liquid. Take your paper and start stamping as you like, dipping it into the paint as necessary. You can wash the potato stamp if you wish to use it with another colour. Leave your paper to the side and allow it to dry. Feel free to add more decoration to the stamped prints if you wish, such as glitter or extra pencil drawings. For more inspiration check out these beautiful potato stamp designs on Pinterest.
Make jewelery from pasta
For many people, pasta is a kitchen staple found in most pantries. Why not give a new lease of life to all that pasta by making some homemade jewelry?
Threading together various shapes and sizes of pasta is great to help motoring skills develop in young children and having them make these while you prepare pasta for dinner can be a fun way to bond.
Fill a jar with 2 cups of water and a half cup of vinegar. Add in the pasta that you wish to dye. Add in some paint of your choice or if using food coloring, a generous 4-5 drops (the color should be quite saturated). Let the pasta soak for 20 minutes before straining through a colander in the sink. Leave on a tray spread out for 30 minutes to dry completely. You can then start to cut some lengths of string, tying a knot at the end to begin before starting to loop in and thread together with your pasta pieces. You don’t have to stop at jewelry either! You can make garlands, hair clips, bracelets and all kinds of crafts with pasta for kids. The Spruce Crafts has lots more ideas for inspiration here.
Paper plate masks
Fed up of hearing about protective face masks? Why not make some fun creative masks at home instead. Perfect for playing dress-up and using your imagination, kids will be able to come up with multiple games using these and enjoy the process of making them. Who doesn’t love to pretend to be somebody else every once in a while?
One of the easiest ways to do masquerade crafts at home is to use paper plates. If you don’t have access to your usual arts and crafts outlets, paper plates are something you can still find in supermarket aisles! You will need paint or whatever materials you have at hand to design, some scissors, glue, straw or some string and you’re ready! Start by drawing the outline for your mask directly onto the paper plate. Consider the size, and make sure to have a small indent for where your nose will be. For the eye holes, fold your mask in half and mark on one side where your eye is. Cut out your eyehole while the plate is folded to get two symmetrical ovals. Paint and design your mask however you wish.
To make a handle for your mask, use hot glue to attach a straw or a craft stick to your paper plate mask. You could also cut a length of ribbon to fit around your head and attach that to the sides of your mask.
