Put your hands together for these handy crafts.
A simple activity that children find fascinating.
We had lots of fun experimenting with this. I prepared the basic shape and divided it up into sections for the children to color and then they experimented with different color combinations, including having two circles on one wheel.
This is also a great paper craft to help teach color mixing, our children were correctly predicting the colors they were going to create. But for a child not quite sure what to expect it would be exciting to have the blue and yellow color wheel turn green when they spin it.
There are two ways to spin these. One is with a short pencil and spin it on a table like a spinning top, but the children found it easier to have the color wheel on a longer pencil and then roll the pencil back and forth between two hands.
Who would have thought that a chenille stick and couple of pieces of paper could look so beautiful. This craft requires little effort yet looks FANtastic when completed. You can use already decorated paper like scrap-booking paper. They look better if you put the stronger pattern or color on the bottom. You could also use pages from magazines or children’s paintings.
We had a child that was disappointed about missing an Australian Aboriginal Art inspired art lesson at school, so we did our own. Wow, how much fun and effective this art technique is
We each used a different way to approach the design to use. We had one using the shape of something – a seahorse, another doing a wavy line and circles, and the third starting with a blob shape. I suggest the blob shape as a great design to use when first having a go with this technique.
So start with a basic design on paper – keep it really simple. Then using cotton buds dipped in paint – start making dots to fill in your shapes and create some very cool patterns.
I have been getting a quite a few comments about folk enjoying the easy origami crafts I have put on papercraftsforchildren. So I at last have updated this list to gather them all up for you!
Origami is one of the best paper crafts for children to play around with. You need minimal materials, just some square paper, and there are activities suitable for all abilities. The ones I list here are easy and I reckon look really good.
For more info about Origami and some basic folds check out my ‘What is Origami?’ article.
I love origami crafts that are very simple and create something fun – this is just that sort of paper craft!
You start of course with a square piece of paper. Fold it across the diagonal and unfold to make a crease.
Fold it across the other diagonal.
Fold it back on itself as pictured.
Fold it in half on the crease.
Fold the top part down, so that the fold lines up with the top of the triangle shaped section poking out. Do the same on the other side
Open the wings back up again. It looks a little like a plane or butterfly, hold the small body part with your fingers and throw it like you would a paper plane. It does not fly through the air but tumbles around and around and down – very cool!
