Crafts as in generally done, or crafts with kids has never been touted as an activity that is supposed to do more than keep kids busy, give them some fun and as some say add creativity to a child’s life.
Kids crafts however should do more than that, much more, actually.
There are crafts that are done many ways. When done educationally, there are an extra 4 benefits that kids get.
It teaches them to use their brains which develops cognitive skills.
It can make them take initiative really make them creative and raise their self esteem.
I can show you how to get kids to make a crafts, in this case a fall crafts that will encompass all of the benefits above.
If you take a look online, the majority of the crafts for kids are made up by adults.
Adults think of a cute idea, create it, get the materials, and have the children follow in step by step fashion.This creates what we call “copycat crafts”.
If the children don’t get involved and really work on these crafts without waiting for adult guidance then they will not get these benefits. They must take action.
You may think that lack of restriction and freedom is good for kids, but it can be very confusing for them and we find the happy medium.
Instead of making a model and preparing something for the kids to copy, you need to come up with just the theme of the project. Then, start thinking of the materials you can give the children that will suggest Fall. Allow your thoughts to drift to awesome fall scenes, raking leaves in the suburbs, delicious looking fall vegetabless.
Two very important or helpful things in this equation are Number one:To gather a lot of different pictures to hang up so that the children can get inspiration from these pictures and pick parts of the pictures that they want use in their craft.
The children will then do much better, if you give them some choices of what they can use in their artwork as a focal point.
As fall’s themes are ful lof trees, I think that giving the children a choice of many different types of trunks to choose from would be a great focal point.
If you look at this Fall craft collage I give step by sep instruction on how to do a fall craft like this.
When doing these type of crafts, kids solve their own problems instead of following and adults template.
It is just when kids can work on their own without an overly rigid structure that they learn to take initiative
Their creativity, of course blooms because they are being allowed to create what they like.
What a self esteem booster this all is.
If you are an early childhood teacher you may find another interesting crafts project in this style called Fall projects for the preschool classroom.
The difference in what this type of crafts, or as I call it educational arts and crafts does for children is indescribable.