toddler craft ideas

Hi all,

Here is the compilation of craft ideas for toddlers. Thanks so much for
all your input!

Pumpkin pie:

Circle of brown construction paper

Larger circle of lighter brown or cream color paper

Use glue stick to glue the dark brown circle to the lighter brown/cream
circle, then rub glue stick all over the dark brown circle. Sprinkle
lightly with cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice (you do the sprinkling!).
It’s especially nice at this time of year.

A variation is pizza: red circle with scraps for pizza toppings. Both
are cute!

Crayon resist scribble pictures are fun — have the toddlers scribble a

picture (the more crayon the better — and be sure to use a good brand

of crayon), then take a paintbrush and watercolor over it — they’ll be

fascinated to see where the paint doesn’t stick!

I find one of the favorites are shapes with stickers to stick on. Ex:
pumpkin and circle shapes for faces or green trees to “decorate”

I love anything with stickers, for example, I do a

tree picture on card stock or construction paper. I

give them crayons and apple stickers in the fall. I do

a similar one in the summer with green foamie leaves

and bug stickers. I also love the foamies we get from

OT. Plus, my twos love dot markers.

We love stick puppets here at Snohomish. These can be as simple as a cut
out shape, a die cut shape, a small picture that relates to your
stories, etc. We put them on large craft sticks or straws with tape. If
you have volunteers, they can cut the shapes out and mount them ahead of
time. Otherwize the caregivers can help the toddlers with this. We
decorate with stickers coloring, etc. We also love to stick stickers on
various shapes. The stickers don’t have to be fancy, simple dots from
the stationery store are fine. Coloing is popular and paperbag puppets,
though these are a little more complicated.

apple tree with hands – use side of hand for trunk (brown). fingers for
apples, green hand prints for leaves. very cute and easy.

With velcro, this may be too old fashioned but we have cut out heavy
paper/card board in the shape of a shoe, then punched large holes in
them The kids thread thick string through the holes, then their moms
tied them.

We have also made little books with blank pages then with the kids made
touch and feel books. The kids glue in fabric softener (for the smell)
cotton puffs, sandpaper, shiny paper, etc.

One of my favorite crafts is to make a construction paper fall leaf
mosaic. I cut 9×12″ light blue paper into 6×9″ pieces, cut “trunks” out
of brown paper, about 1.5×4″ in size, and then tear a bunch of red,
orange, yellow, green, and brown construction paper into smallish
pieces–you decide how small for your kids, but it could be 1/2 inch to
an inch square. The kids glue their tree trunk onto the blue paper, then
decide what color leaves their tree has, and glue them in a bunch at the
top of their tree trunk, and/or put them “On the ground” at the base of
the tree trunk. It’s fairly independent and the different “trees” they
produce are very lovely!

We did a fabric pumpkin craft today that was quite popular and involved
no cutting or gluing. Take an 18″ square piece of fabric in fall
colors/print, lay it out on the table or floor, and set a roll of cheap
toilet paper in the center of the wrong side of the fabric. Tuck the
sides of the fabric up over the roll and into the hole in the center,
leaving it a little puffy on the sides. Scrunch up a piece of brown
lunch bag or grocery bag for a stem and poke it into the hole. Twist a
green pipe cleaner around the stem and curl the ends for a “vine.” The
little ones need help to manipulate things, but there is no mess & it
turns out quite cute!

We made clothespin butterflys, folded a

fireman’s hat, made a rocking farmers truck (had a picture of a truck
that

they colored and then taped it to a small paper plate that was folded in

half. We also made a sunflower (again it was precut ) kids and adults
colored it and taped a green construction paper stem to it. The moms
got

creative and cut the petals of the flowers and folded in every other
one,

they looked cute. Also tissue paper flowers, everyone was given three

different colored squares and then secure with pipe cleaner, a moon and

stars mobile ( a straw and yarn).

A great fall craft project. cut out a large leaf shape and cut out the
middle so there is just a thin outline of a leaf. Stick it to contact
paper and supply a multitude of different color tissue paper. Have the
children stick the tissue paper to the contact paper. when they are
done, stick another piece of contact paper on top and have the parent
cut out around the leaf. It makes a wonderful suncatcher!

My twos love to paint and, contrary to popular expectations, do not make
an unholy mess of the room. I give them each one coloring sheet, one
teaspoon of paint, and a brush. (They can’t spread one teaspoon of paint
that far and wide!) I have a dishpan of suds waiting for them when
they’re finished painting.

I’ve found that:

1- Little ones do quite well with small parts, more so than most people
expect.

2- Little ones like to make things to wear – hats, headbands, et al, but
not masks.

To relate these thoughts to fall I’d:

1- paint pumpkins/leaves/apples/etc.

2- make farmers hats.

3- stick apple stickers onto cutout trees.

4- glue snipped up yarn to a squirrel’s tail to make it fuzzy.

5- glue leaves together to make pictures. (Did you ever make a Leaf
Man?)

6- glue leaves, pumpkins, apples, corn, … to a headband to wear for
Thanksgiving. (An alternative to this is to make a smaller band that
fits around a baby food jar. Prepare two such jars, perforate the lids,
and you have a set of salt and pepper shakers for the holiday table.)

7- Dress a paper doll scarecrow.