by LaSabra Caldwell

Created on: August 12, 2009   Last Updated: August 18, 2009

With the first day of school being right around the corner a lot teachers are scrambling to get their curriculum and ideas for their classes together. Elementary aged children enjoy doing crafts and it is also a great educational way to keep a young child's time occupied. Here is some fun back to school craft ideas for you to try at home or in your classroom.

Let the children make photo frames and take a picture of them to place in their frames. Place them along the side of a bulletin board to use throughout the school year. On the months of a child's birthday place their picture on a large calendar bulletin board you made or under the name of the month on a bulletin board with the day their birthday is.

Do a graph craft project with your class. Let the kids get to know each other better. Ask questions like who has blue eyes raise your hand (and go through other eye colors as well like green, brown and hazel). Ask who has pets, who has a cat and so forth. After you and your class have all of the things tallied make a graph with your class. List the top number on the graph as the number of children in the class and fill in the graph with the answers from the questions that were previously asked. This helps the kids learn more about each other, count and learn differences in people and their home lives.

Let the students trace each other out on butcher paper. Have them write their names on each paper they were traced out on. Let them color their eyes to match their eye color. Let them decorate it with different things like shapes cut out of construction paper, glitter, macaroni noodles and whatever else you or your class can think of to use. Have them write 5 things about themselves as well inside or beside their traced selves. Let them display their selves on a wall designated for them so when your class has open house in the fall the parents can come in and see them and then they can take them home at open house.

Let the children take black construction paper to use for their background and use orange, red, brown, yellow and green construction paper to make and cut out leaves or find something with leaves on it that they can color and cut out. Have them glue their leaves around on the black sheet of construction paper and tell them about how the leaves change in fall. You could also read a story with a fall theme or about how leaves change if you like to go along with this activity.

These are a few educational craft activities to help your students get to know one another and learn at the same time. Sit back and enjoy watching the smiles of your class as they relax and enjoy coming back to school may it be their first time or their 4th.

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