Toddler Crafts

Finding something fun and exciting to do for your toddler when she’s bored isn’t always easy. You don’t want to just turn on the TV, but if you have to read about ‘The Poky Little Puppy’ one more time, you might just go insane. So, what can you do? How about making a simple craft with your child instead? Your child will love having your undivided attention while the two of you craft together, and you can feel good about doing something productive and educational with your toddler. It’s a great way for you to spend quality time with your child. Why not get started right away.

Sock Puppets What do you do with all those single left-over socks whose counterparts were eating by the washing machine or the dryer? You make sock puppets out of them of course. I love this craft idea because you keep your child entertained while you make the puppets together, and she ends up with a new toy that will keep her busy for quite some time after you are done making the puppet.

Puppets are also a great way for your preschooler to express her ideas and how she views the world around here. They are a great way to spark your child’s imagination, plus they are very easy to make. All you need is a sock, and various crafting supplies to turn it into a puppet. You can use buttons for eyes, or pick up a pack of wiggly eyes at your crafting store. Of course you could also cut them out of felt or scraps of fabric and glue them on. Use leftover yarn for hair and additional pieces of felt or fabric to make clothing, or glue in a tongue. Just use your imagination - and that of your toddler of course and you’ll come up with all kinds of fun puppets.

Collage A lot of children love to cut things out and use glue.Take advantage of this by making a collage with your child. You don’t need much for this activity, just some old magazines, a large piece of paper, and of course scissors and glue. Of course you could also add some crayons to the mix to let your child draw around the glued-on pictures.

Start by handing your child some magazine pages and then just let her cut out whatever she would like to include in the collage. Then it’s time to glue the cut-outs on blank sheet of paper. The last step is to have her draw and write on the collage with the markers or crayons. Offer to write notes or headlines on the collage for your child. Of course this masterpiece should be up on the wall or fridge so everyone can admire what the two of you made.

Paper Plate Crafts One of the things that you can find in almost any home is paper plates and they make a great basis for quite a few different crafts. Just add some markers, paint, construction paper or crayons and you are ready for a fun project.

One of our favorites is paper plate masks. Start by cutting two holes for the eyes, then hand your child some markers, yarn and construction paper and let them turn the paper plate into any mask they’d like. They can be animals, favorite cartoon characters or any creature they can come up with.

Another favorite of ours is to recreate food items on the plate.Use tan yarn as spaghetti that’s then covered with a piece of red construction paper (the sauce). Glue the spaghetti and sauce on the plate, then draw some ‘cheese’ on with a yellow crayon. Alphabet cereal and a paper plate can turn into a fun craft that will also help your child practice spelling. Just ask her to turn them into a bowl of alphabet soup and encourage her to spell her name or simple words with the cereal letters.

For more great parenting advice, visit our parenting blog. If you would like more fun craft ideas delivered to you email inbox, along with tips, recipes, product reviews and more join our online parenting magazine today!

- Susanne Myers

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!