Crafts for a Toddler

These are my thoughts about crafts with a toddler, as well as some links to posts about crafts that we’ve done with The Goose.

It’s not impossible to do crafts with a young toddler, but it takes a bit of planning and strategics. On the one hand, you want them to be engaged and have fun. On the other hand, you want them to have a good end result. Here are some of my thoughts that I’ve thunk about this . . .

• Hands on, as much as possible. I want her to do as much of the craft as possible and whenever I have to do one of the steps, I give her a comparable job to do to keep busy. For example, if I need to cut something that couldn’t be cut ahead of time, then I will give her some scrap paper and her scissors so that she can practice using them.
• End result’s aren’t a bad thing. I see the value in creative freedom and will certainly incorporate less structured crafts later on. However, at this point, the crafts are also serving as concrete learning tools, so many of them do have prescribed end results. For example, when we’re learning about whales, she makes a whale craft. However, there’s also lots of freedom with colouring and collages.
• Crafts for learning. I pick the crafts that we do based on something that she’s either already interested in or that I want her learn about. This gives her a concrete learning tool to make the connection.

Here are some posts on the crafts that we have done . . .

Paper Masks

Egg Carton Caterpillars

Paper Bag Whale

Paper Snowflakes