Craft Time – Craft Caravan

Five Ways to Stay Crafty and Organized all School Year

June 19, 2016 admin

September is a season of new beginnings, so we’re taking the opportunity to make some mid-year commitments that will help us stay organized and crafty all year long:

Have the kids set goals and track them throughout the year: this is something many teachers do with their students (even the wee ones) at the beginning of the school year, and we think it’s a wonderful idea. If your child has set goals at their preschool or elementary school, you can support them at home by making time for them to work towards the goal, asking them questions, and praising effort. If your child doesn’t set goals in the classroom, have them set goals at home. This could be anything from learning how to ride a bike to putting their face in the water, taking care of houseplants, or learning to paint. The goals should be realistic (riding your bike around the block, not across Canada!) measurable (did I do it? Yes or no), and include a timeline. The point is to have the kids reach for something and celebrate success when they accomplish it, or to talk about what to do differently (change the goal, change the effort) the next time they set a goal.
Keep a ‘Look at Me Now’ Journal with Each Child: though the school year seems to fly by, it’s amazing how much they grow and learn in the span of a year. Make or buy a booklet or binder to act as a journal for the year – have your child fill it with little details about themselves – like their favourite colour, a drawing, a tracing of their handprint, a drawing of your family, their favourite food, etc. Preschoolers will do drawings that parent or caregiver can help caption. Do an ‘About Me’ journal session with your child again halfway through the school year, and then at the end of the year. Compare how much has changed – can they write their name now? Do they have a different favourite colour? how many numbers can they write? What do their scribbles mean now?
Decorate a Box or large folder for art projects: hopefully the kids will be coming home with lots of art and craft projects, so plan to store their favourites (and yours!) before they pile up around the house. For projects that are too big, consider taking pictures of them before recycling, and plan to display a few special pieces around the house in picture frames, taped to a wall, or on an ‘art clothesline’
Schedule Craft Time at Home: we’re obviously big fans of doing crafts at home, even when the kids might be doing crafts at school. Integrate craft time into the routine to give your child some much needed down time at the end of a busy day. Crafts at home are a great way for kids to practice new skills, to start conversations about what they did at school, and to get creative without any social pressure. Keep supplies in an easy to reach location and (if they need it) help your child get started by offering a few simple ideas, without telling what to do. If you’re running short on ideas or supplies, the Kids Craft Club provides a monthly delivery of craft supplies and suggestions.
If you take something out, put it back when you’re done: this may seem obvious to all of the naturally organized out there, but this summer I’ve realized that my kids are very good at starting a multitude of projects throughout the day, but they’re not very practiced at cleaning up after themselves before they move on to the next thing. They come by this honestly, as I often find myself leaving one task half-finished as I dash off to the next. Since schedules get tighter in the fall, we won’t have time to continuously be on the hunt for the latest location of that critical item we left somewhere, so we’re going to make more of an effort to integrate time for a thorough clean-up when we move from one activity to the next.

Craft Time Tips: Fun with the Kids Craft Club

June 18, 2016 admin

Here are some simple tips to help your kids get started when they get their Kids Craft Club package in the mail!

Do a quick review of craft suggestions with your child, pointing out pictures and ideas. This will often be a very QUICK review, as they may just want to get started right away!!
Note: the instructions are just guidelines that show suggestions for the craft supplies. Your child may want to do something completely different, and that’s great!
Let them open the craft supply package, and dump the contents onto workspace so that they can easily access supplies
Put a small amount of glue onto a plate or plastic lid, and let them use a sponge, paint brush, or craft stick for spreading glue
Let your child take the lead – kids are often more interested in process, rather than end product!
Be nearby, in case your child needs some help
Ask open ended questions about what they’re working on, such as “tell me about what you’re doing” or “that looks interesting”……they might want to share their thoughts on what they’re doing
Keep the conversation and their interest flowing by referring to the included ‘fun facts’ sheet and talking about their craft subject matter together

Craft Time Tips: How to make the most of craft time for kids

June 18, 2016 admin

We recently received this question about time-crunched families and crafts, and thought it worth sharing!

Q. If my family only has time for crafts every so often, which crafts are most worth our time and why?

A. The best thing we can do as parents is to offer our kids a range of craft supplies, projects, and tools to explore. Kids learn new skills and make new connections every time they have a new experience. If you’re short on time, try to focus on a different activity every craft time. For example, one week can be painting, another week can be beading, another week is drawing or modeling with clay.

If your child is confident with a particular activity, such as building or painting, make the supplies for that activity accessible, so that your child can work independently while you are focusing on other tasks. A simple supply of scissors, paper, pencils, glue and crayons will be enough to get them started.

If your child is reluctant to do crafts on their own, encourage him or her by picking up on a theme they’re interested in. Calendar themes are a common interest for every child, so take advantage by suggesting they make birthday cards or decorations for special events. This way, you’ll save a trip to the store to buy a card or decorations.

Crafts don’t need to be complicated for kids to have fun with them. Know your child’s interests and abilities, give them a few supplies and creative control, and watch them learn through hands-on fun!

Power Outage Activities: Ten Activities to do with the kids

June 16, 2016 admin

The power was out at our house this morning, and it stayed that way for several hours. Luckily it went out after I had heated food for the kids lunches, but I had to skip a few other daily-routine tasks, like drying my hair or boiling water in the (electric) kettle to make tea. It got me thinking about the things we do during the day with our kids – some of which rely on power. Here’s a list of power-free activities that you can do during an outage, or if you’re out camping or just want to go “old school” for a day.

1. Make some Music:

You can’t listen to music without power, so make some!! Practice singing, even if you’re tone-deaf. The kids will be quick to join in. Sing kid favourites or teach them some of your favourites. Start harmonizing or sing in rounds – this can be really tricky for kids! Our favourite is ‘Don’t Throw your Junk in My backyard – here’s a classroom full of kids doing a demo! Or make a marching band with ‘instruments’ from pot lids, wooden spoons, and containers full of dried beans or rice.

2. Do Crafts:

Low-tech creative play that we (of course!!) love love love. Pull out the glue, scissors, and craft supplies, and start creating. Don’t forget to check the recycling bin for any hidden crafty gems! If you want to work to a theme, ask kids to build a battery or generator that would give you power, or draw pictures of how power is made. If they’re not interested or too young for that, do crafts that feed off of their current interests or calendar themes (such as winter or spring, for example)

3. Go Outside

Always a good alternative, whether the power is on or not.

4. Water Play

If your windows need cleaning or the floors need wiping, turn the kids onto the task! They’ll be happy to help as long as it feels like part of a game. And if everything is already scrubbed, then get paintbrushes out and put the kids to work with water on an old tile or chalkboard – they can make water patterns that dry quickly. And of course they can extend the water play by having bath time – but remember that the heat won’t come on as long as the power is out, so they’ll need lots of snuggles to stay warm is their hair is wet afterwards!

5. Do A Play or Skit:

A happy alternative to watching TV is to create a drama (or comedy!) of your own. Be inspired by ‘Jillian Jiggs and the Secret Surprise’, a wonderful book about Jillian putting on a show – it even has a fun script at the end!

6. Build a Fort:

In the living room, with blankets and chairs. This would especially be fun in the dark!

7. Make Wall Shadows:

You might need to close the blinds during the day, but flashlights against a dark wall are always a favourite way to entertain!

8. Make Simple Snacks and Meals:

Cheese sandwiches without the grill, wraps, or anything you’d usually send in a bag lunch. Snack can be apples spread with peanut butter and sprinkled with raisins. Yum!

9. Build Something

Stack blocks or (non-breakable) cups. Try making a tower out of paper (!?), make a marble maze out of toilet paper rolls, build a ‘sculpture’ from playdough, or use popsicle sticks to make a teepee frame or other structure.

10. Read a book, play a game, or do some sports

Anyday, anytime, anywhere.

Craft Theme: Snow and Winter

June 16, 2016 admin

I live in Vancouver, which gets relatively little snow in the winter compared to the rest of Canada (sometimes none!). So, when the great outdoors get a little snowy, the kids get a little crazy with excitement. Our back yard is currently coated in a blanket of snow, but snow is always short-lived here, so it likely won’t last much longer. Here’s a list of five (actually six!) craft supply ideas for snow-themed crafts, so we can make our snow days last a little longer when the rain decides to wash the real snow away.

1. Cotton Balls

The classic craft supplies for winter themed crafts. Cotton balls already look like a snowball, so all the kids need is a little glue and a piece of paper so that they can create snowmen, snow forts, and other snowy day pictures. Ripping the cotton balls up into smaller pieces is a fun tactile activity that creates whisps of snow or snowbanks.

2. Paper Doilies

Craft supplies for snow theme - paper doilies

different sizes can be used for small, medium, and large ‘snowballs’ on a snowman picture, or sponge on some glue and sprinkle glitter to make a sparkly snowflake

3. Shredded Paper or paper confetti

Craft Supplies for snow theme - recycled paper shred

Put your paper recycling to work by running old bills and statements through the shredder to create long strings of snow. Tear, rip or crumple paper shred into snowy scenes or 3-D forts. Use a sprinkling of white paper confetti to make a blizzard. A blizzard looks especially intriguing if it’s created on black paper with white pencil crayon or crayon drawings, and lots of paper confetti.

4. White Yarn or String

white string for winter craft theme or snow craft theme

Use white string or yarn in any number of ways: glue it on to paper to make a pretty design, press it onto a glued pattern on waxed paper, leaving it to dry into a peel-off snowflake, pull it through white paint to create an abstract snowy painting, or integrate science by making a borax icicle

5. Shaving Cream

Practice letters with shaving cream or whipped cream craft

Play in the snow indoors! Spray a small quantity of shaving cream onto a washable placemat or table surface. Kids can use their index fingers to practice tracing oversized numbers or letters in their ‘snow’. Gently wipe the letter away and start all over again

6. Food Items from your Kitchen

Sugar cube igloo craft for winter or snow theme

The kitchen is overflowing with various items that can be used to create a lovely snowy scene. Use flour or icing sugar for a dusting of snow, sugar cubes to create 3-dimensional snow projects such as igloos or snow forts, shredded coconut for larger snowflakes, and whipped cream for a big dump of snow! Most of these ingredients could be integrated into a baking project too – make Gingerbread with a dusting of icing sugar, and serve with whipped cream and a sprinkling of coconut. Wouldn’t that be great after a big play outside in the snow?

What to do with Finished Crafts

June 15, 2016June 15, 2016 admin

We love all of the craft projects that our kids do, and we find it hard to part with most of their work. It seems like every little drawing or craft tells a story of a milestone that has been reached, a current interest, or their world-view at the time. However, as their finished crafts continue to pile up, there’s no denying that a little ‘filtering’ needs to be done. We asked our facebook group what they do with their kids’ finished masterpieces, and here’s what they said:

Take pictures of the finished work and make a year by year photo album
Take photos of them holding their finished work, so you can remember how big they were when they did it
Put the most special pieces into an art portfolio that can be accessed by you or your child to look at
Store them in a big bin
Clip them to an art display clothes-line
Take pictures and write about them in a blog
Hang them on the wall, by themselves or in frames

As for which ones to keep and which ones to toss? It’s fun to get the kids involved in this little sorting task. Here’s what we do to find our favourites with the kids:

Hold up two of their pieces and ask them which one they want to recycle
Toss (recycle) the one they’ve chosen, and grab another piece, comparing it to the first
If they can’t make a decision about which one to recycle, talk about why each piece is special to them. You may decide to keep both
If they’re saying ‘keep’ to most of the artwork or crafts, go through the pile with them again and ask them to find ‘X’ number of pieces to recycle, or ask them to keep their top 5 or top 10……
If one or both of you really want to keep an item that the other is willing to toss, keep it – you can always part with it later
Remember to remove bits of ribbon, googly eyes, pom poms, and other small pieces that can be re-used for other crafts. Keep them in a craft supply bin that the kids can easily access

Do you have more ideas on what to keep or toss, or how to store finished crafts? Let us know!

How to Get Ready for Craft Time

June 15, 2016June 15, 2016 admin Leave a comment

Kids come with different ages, interests, and aptitudes, so it’s no surprise that some kids would choose to spend all day working on crafts while others would prefer playing soccer or climbing on a jungle gym. But whether your child is ultra-crafty or mildly uninterested, there’s no disputing the contribution craft time makes to early childhood development – fine motor skills, creativity, and logical thinking (to name a few) are all challenged in different ways through craft projects. Knowing your child’s preferences and aptitudes will help ensure a successful craft time for everyone. Here are a few things to think about when you’re planning to get crafty:

1. Who will be doing the craft project(s)? Does your child like to work solo or do they prefer to work together with you?

Some kids like to work independently and will need minimal help getting started, while others may look to mom or dad for their contribution, as they’re using the time to socialize with their adults. If your child works independently, you can check in with them periodically, while the social child will need more of your focused attention.

2. How much structure does your child like? Do they prefer a lot of guidance before they jump into crafts, or do they just want to dive in?

If your child likes structure, you could make some suggestions for craft projects, or show them how they can use craft materials. If they prefer to dive in, it’s probably enough just to have the craft supplies available to them so they can get started

3. What is your child’s attention span? Which craft supplies should be used?

Keep craft projects simple and open ended if your child is quick to move on to new activities. If you child likes to focus for longer periods of time, more elaborate projects can be planned. Choose supplies that are easily managed by the kids – if they can’t control the amount of glue or paint they pour out, put dollops of these items onto an old plastic lid and use popsicle sticks or paint brushes for spreading. Put sparkles and decorating accessories in small bowls or plates to avoid dumping everything at once. Ensure that the supplies or ideas you provide are not overly complex for the level of attention they have – this can lead to frustration

4. What time of day works best for your child to concentrate on focused activity/fine motor skills?

If your child has the soccer ball in hand and is ready to run outside and do some dribbling, sitting down to the craft table will be a hard sell. However, if they are easing into the day, winding down from a long day, or just need some quiet time, doing crafts might be just what they’re looking for.

5. Where is the best place for your child to work?

Ask yourself this question keeping in mind your child’s needs, and your own as well. Do they prefer to stand, crouch, or sit? How messy will they get, and do they need an apron or old t-shirt? Is it better to take the craft project outside? Find a location that will work for them and for you. A little mess is unavoidable – minimize frustration and restrictions by choosing a workspace that can be messed up and easily cleaned up.

For preschool and early elementary kids, the goal of crafts is simple exposure to new activities and skills. A few minutes of preparation from a parent or caregiver will go a long way towards holding your kids’ interest in their craft projects. Choosing the right place, time, and materials is the first step in making craft time fun for your kids.