by Ayesha Christmas

Created on: December 07, 2009   Last Updated: November 21, 2010

 Easy (and inexpensive) Christmas Crafts for Toddlers

One of the difficulties when devising Christmas crafts for toddlers is finding something that they can actually do for themselves rather than one which requires two adult hands and an art degree for them to complete to a standard worthy of hanging on the wall or fridge! Anyone who has worked with toddlers will know that most art and craft activities aimed at them will require quite a lot of preparation, correction, a lot of preparation! The craft activities I will outline here are variations on a mosaic theme, which is one of the easiest ways younger children can achieve an end product that is recognisable . Remember this is a craft activity rather than an artistic one, so providing as much support as you can for the childrent to be creative whilst maintaining their independence is fine. With a bit of extra planning and preparation you can end up with (up to) four different items from the same basic activity;

Christmas Cards

Calendars

Christmas Decorations

Items for wall displays

The first thing you need to do is go onto some of those free colouring pages sites on the net, or alternatively use any blackline masters you already have of fairly simple Christmas themed images. The most simple being shapes like Christmas baubles, Christmas Trees, Snowmen etc, hope you are getting my drift (sorry!) If you have any very gifted toddlers in your charge you can differentiate the activity by using more complex images. You also need to decide on the size of the finished pieces you are aiming for and enlarge/reduce you images to fit with these requirements. If you want to make calendars, you will need to look for places where you can get free, downloadable,1 page calendars with a space to put a picture. If making Christmas cards, folded A4 sized thin card is a good choice as it is easily available.

You now need to prepare a stock of coloured pieces 1-2 " in size; try to work out the colours you need and sort them accordingly (plastic mushroom or berry containers are good for this). It is also a good idea to make some round shapes to be used as buttons, eyes etc.

The next big decision is which type of glue to use. Generally think that PVA thinned a little and applied with large brushes works well but if you are going to do this remember you will need to cover furnishings and children appropriately! You could also try solid glue sticks but these may prove tricky for small hands to manage, their main advantage is that if working with low ratios of children it is possible for you to apply the glue for them a little at a time, avoiding mess and cutting down on clearing up time at the end.

With a little support it won't take long for even the youngest of children to create lovely items to make displays or take home and give as gifts to grandparents etc.

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