Crafts for Kiddos

Since I'm kind of a glutton for punishment, I decided to lead a craft club for my school's after-school program. It was only 5 weeks, and I kept the crafts simple and fun. It turned out to be a total blast, and a great way to get to know a few students (16, in fact) better outside of class.



(As an aide, I get to move all around the school and thus know about half of our ~500 students by name, but I don't know many of them very well, so this was a golden opportunity.)



After scouring Pinterest, as well as getting some input from my 2nd-grade babysittee, I came up with five awesome, age appropriate crafts for 5-8 year olds.



Since we started in January, I wanted something seasonal and cute. I also wanted to make pretty much all of my crafts things that would actually functional or decorative, rather than just fun to make. This was our first shot:

Source

Then we made hang-able monograms, simply by cutting foam sheets into letters and decorating them. I failed to take pictures of that, but they were super simple and cute. My babysittee has hers hanging on the basement door of her home. Heh.



Next, we tackled exotic birds, made out of terra cotta pots. Add pom-pom heads, googly eyes, and feathers, and you've got...

My mom made something like this at a craft class when she worked at Michaels.

My little flock!

I love seeing their unique ideas and creativity!

Our last week together (one week got snowed out) we made a Valentine-y sort of craft. Add together some wax paper, tissue paper, and Modge Podge for some adorable little lovey-dovey stained "glass."

The hardest part for my kindergarten students? Cutting out those hearts. I tried to keep it simple
by folding black paper in half and having them cut out two question-mark shapes, one inside the
other. Even with very careful, slow instructions I had to help a couple of them.

Cute.

Best part? For 16 students, and four weeks of crafts, I came in just under $50. That was my prescribed budget, so I had a little help from my own craft stash (some feathers, paintbrushes, glue) and some really old supplies that my supervising teacher donated (paint, and she let us use her scissors). I was pretty pleased overall.