by Lokemun Magar

Created on: September 28, 2007

Group craft ideas for kids are a must in anyone's bag of tricks. You will never know when your family members or good friends will decide to load your house with their screaming kids while they hang out somewhere!

The best group crafts are those with plenty of materials easily available at short notice and cheap! They must at the same time allow the kids to interact as they work. Group crafts are fun at parties, camps, on a boring Sunday family gathering, or a quiet wintry evening. They should be easy to make and completed by the time the group has to disband!

PAPER MACHE:

The easiest, messiest but most fun group craft whose materials can be whipped up in ten minutes is Paper Mache craft.

Have a small packet of tapioca flour (about 200-500g) in your crafts kit. Add sprinklings of the flour to a pot of hot water and stir continuously until the right watery and sticky consistency is reached. Alternatively, keep a huge bottle of cheap water-soluble glue if you hate cooking.

Get your charges to bring along two new toilet rolls and old newspapers. Soak strips of paper in the watery glue thoroughly. Line them by the side of the pot to let the excess watery glue drip off.

Jewelry Containers:

To make nice palm-sized jewelry containers, drape strips of plastic cut from discarded plastic bags round the base of empty bottles. Next, drape strips of dry paper evenly round the first layer of plastic. Attach with a little of the watery glue. Then layer on the soaked sticky strips. If the layers get too wet, alternate dry and wet strips. When the layer of strips is of the thickness you want one-tenth to one-eighth of an inch is fine, hang the bottles to the laundry pole or window grid to dry. While waiting for the Mache to dry, clear the work area and have tea or a snack.

When the Mache is dry, remove it from the bottle, trim and file the rim and paint, decorate and lacquer the Mache. You can use votes to determine the best jewelry container!

Face Masks and Pictures:

For younger kids, you could substitute the bottles with blown up balloons or old balls to make face masks. Alternatively, for a simpler craft project, draw Get the kids to roll up narrow strips of colored tissue paper into tiny balls, dip the balls into the watery glue and stick them onto a huge picture drawn on large poster paper.

Pinata:

If you are running a camp of a few days, you could plan a series of crafts sessions on making mini piata, instead of a massive one.

Roll up an A3-sized drawing paper along its length and

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