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Children usually love getting creative! You can use all kinds of easy-to-get materials for an activity, for example recycled cereal boxes, newspapers, toilet paper rolls… Nevertheless, there are couple of things to consider before letting the kids go wild!
- Prepare materials - Materials used for art activities can be basically anything. Recycled materials are always a good choice. You can use for example: recycled cereal boxes, newspapers, toilet paper rolls, jars, cardboard boxes, odd mittens, pieces of broken toys or clothes, natural materials and anything you can find around!
- Choose methods – Are the children interested in painting, cutting, sticking, coloring..? Choose the needed equipment accordingly, taking also the children’s developmental levels into account. It is good to give children various opportunities to explore different kind of methods and tools.
- Cover the area – Find plastic table clothes, waste bags, newspapers or something to cover tables/floors and possibly craft aprons to protect children’s clothes.
- Begin! Let the children choose the material they like and decide what they would like to do! If children are way too puzzled you can give some ideas based on their interests – a musical instrument out of toilet paper rolls, hand puppet out of a mitten, building out of a cardboard box, insect out of natural materials…
- The best thing is to let the child discover and invent by himself! Allow each child to make their own decisions and lovely personalized crafts. Take some photos or short videos during the process.
- Once each child has an idea what they would like to create from the materials available, help them whenever needed. Do not go after a “perfect” result, listen to the child and let the child decide when the craft is ready.
- Put all the crafts for display. Let each child describe their work and write a note next to the craft with their quotes and the date. Add your own observations about the craft process to the note. Share a photo of the craft and child’s comments with the child’s family or have the display in a place where also families can see it.
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