Phenomenally Crafty: Foam Party - Crafting with Kids

If you are a parent and you aren’t crafting with your kids, you’re missing out. Regardless of their age or skill level, there is a project out there to engage every child. I was speaking with the Wilton cake teacher at my store about how much our kids love being with us in the kitchen. Even if they are too little to measure they can still stir and be a part of the process. She even gives her two year old a piping bag with a little buttercream for practice. For the youngest kids, crafting helps build fine motor skills, and brings up countless lessons about shapes, colors, and numbers. For older kids it can help build confidence and perseverance by instilling a sense of pride when a project is completed. Here are some tips for crafting with your kid:

Have an open mind and relax. This really goes for all crafting, but especially children’s projects. Your child may not want to do things exactly the way the instructions say. That’s ok. Depending on the project, it could get messy. That’s ok, too.
Pick an age appropriate project. Your three year old is not ready for glass etching. Conversely, your eleven year old may be bored to death cutting felt shapes. Make sure that the materials required can be used by them safely, especially cutting tools and adhesives.
Pick a project your kid shows interest in. Maybe your son wants to learn cross stitch, or your daughter is into models. Let them have at it. You never know, if they really love it you could be instilling in them a lifelong past time.
Pick a good time. Right before nap time is not a good time. When you are distracted by a huge pile of work emails or house cleaning it is not a good time. If you have to be somewhere in 30 minutes it’s not a good time either. Lazy Sunday afternoon? Good time. Instead of TV in the evening? Good time. Snow day? Good time.
Take breaks. Your project may require several sittings. Maybe you need to let the glue dry. Maybe your child is getting frustrated with a difficult step. Maybe both have just been concentrating for a while and are getting the wiggles. Stop for a while and do something else. Just remember to come back and finish what you started!
SUPERVISE. Crafts are not a babysitter. If you are trying to get your kid into crafts so they will be occupied on their own you are missing out on the fun. Even if you have the most responsible tween ever, it’s still not a good idea to let them handle most crafting tools without adult supervision. Accidents can happen, so always be careful.
Remember, the more excited you are about something, the more excited your child will be. Don’t ever think, “They’ll never be able to complete this.” My kid surprises me with her abilities daily.

My daughter is not quite three, and we try craft projects a couple of times a week. Some are more successful than others. I tend to theme her project around the seasons and holidays. With less than a month until Valentine’s Day, we have turned our craft time attention to making valentine cards for our preschool class and other special people. When it comes to the under-five folks, I like to turn to two fun and friendly fibers, felt and foam. To make it even easier, there are tons of kits available in your local Michael’s with pre-cut, adhesive-backed pieces that you just peel and stick together. Here is the kit we started working on today:

It contains enough foam pieces to make a dozen valentines. We need a couple more than that, so we are going to assemble two kits.

The only item we are using that is not included in the kit is the pen to write the names on the valentines (an adult’s job if your kid is still learning their letters). The pen I am using is one of my favorites, a Pitt artist pen by Faber Castell. It has a brush nib. I am using pink because, hey, they’re Valentines.

So we sit down and go through out kit contents. We talk about the circles and heart shapes. We talk about the colors, and my daughter is happy because her two favorite colors are pink and red. We count the circles. There are twelve. We talk about the shapes that are bigger and the shapes that are smaller. We work as we talk. I peel the adhesive backs and she sticks. I tell her to aim for the center on the big shapes when sticking the smaller shapes, and she does a pretty good job. If one gets badly miss-stuck we just peel it off and try again. That’s how we learn.

After about 30 minutes of peeling, sticking, and talking, I can tell she is fidgety. She starts sticking hearts on herself and the table. Basically, she quits paying attention. So I ask her, “Are you ready to stop?” She nods, and says she wants to play with play-doh now. So that’s what we do.

This is what we got done: