Get your Creativity on!
In our last Newsletter, we had an exclusive interview with teacher Mr Ballard, who gave parents some really good tips on how to keep their kids entertained as well as active and educated through this difficult time. Following on from one of his top tips on creativity and fun, we’ve compiled some exciting activities that you and your kids can do to ensure everyone is occupied, entertained and creating something special you can keep forever!
Make Pom Poms
Time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Pom poms are a diverse and fun accesory for kids to make, combining their favourite colours and learning hand-eye coordination!
All you need is card board, a pen, scissors and some wool and you and the kids can create your own unique poms poms! These can be bag accessories, or if you have some googly eyes, maybe you could turn them into pom pom animals!
See the tutorial here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=136&v=XM2qyPem0TU&feature=emb_logo
firstpallette.com
Make paper plate masks
Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: Easy
We’ve usually got some paper plates lying around from an old party we had back in the day when parties were allowed! Now it’s time to put them to good use, and turn them into masks for you and the kids o enjoy!All you need is a few paper plates, scissors, pens/ paints and some string/ elastic.
Get your paper plates and roughly place them over the child’s face, carefully mark out where the eyes and mouth are on the plate with a felt tip pen, and cut holes in these places.
Once the holes are cut, let your child to choose their favourite animal that they want to make, maybe it’s a character from a film or maybe it’s a made up animal! Find the relevant colours for this creature in either felt tip pens or paints.
They can make their mask as extravagant as they want – maybe you’ve got some extra card or paper for big bunny ears at the top or some other crafty bits that they can out to good use!
Once the mask is finished, mark a tiny hole with scissors on either side of the face. Tie the elastic/ string through these holes and let your child try on their new mask!
Paint Easter Eggs
Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: Medium
They may be hard to come by at the moment, but if you do have a couple of eggs you can spare, this one always brings out your child’s creativity and imagination!
This one is probably for older children around 6+ due to the intricacy it involves, but younger children can join in with a helping hand.
All you need for this one is hard boiled eggs that have been left to cool down, some felt tips, paints and glue for any crafty things like glitter or sequins.
Kids can even go a bit further and make a scene for their eggs. Maybe they’ve painted farm animals so want to paint a farm scene on some card for the back ground, maybe they’ve painted their favourite film character and want to make other props to go along side it.
See more ideas here: https://whatmomslove.com/kids/easter-egg-decorating-ideas-for-kids/
Make your own afternoon tea
Time: 2 hours
Difficulty: Medium
This is definitely one the grown ups will appreciate! At a time where going out to a cafe and enjoying some tea and cake isn’t on the table right now… why not get the kids to all work together and create your own afternoon tea!
What’s nice about this is it gets the kids to dress up a little bit and experience something away from sitting down and working. You could try and transform one of your rooms into a little cafe, or set a table and chairs up outside to make it that little bit special.
You will need ingredients for making sandwiches and whatever sweet treats you fancy, including biscuits, cakes and scones which are nice and easy things for kids to make.
Of course, this will definitely need adult supervision, but the children should be able to fill the sandwiches with easy fillings like grated cheese, ham and salad – they’ll just need you to cut them into little finger sandwiches.
The same goes for baking – the children will enjoy adding and mixing the ingredients, it’s just the harder things they’ll need a grown up’s hands for, like turning on the oven, electric equipment and any heavy lifting.
Let the kids decorate as they please – they might enjoy serving it to you as well! Sit back and enjoy the little one’s creations – however good or bad they might taste!
Make flour play dough
Time: 30 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
This will be a great hit with the younger kids! Super simple and effective, the only ingredients you need are flour, water and salt, with some food colouring or washable paint to add colour, and some different shaped cookie cutters so they can make some shapes.
Just mix 1 cup of plain flour, 1/2 cup of salt and gradually stir in 1/2 cup of water. Add more water if it feels too dry, and kneed until it’s a smooth, doughy consistency. Divide into sections and add 5-10 drops of each food colour/ paint for different coloured dough.
Let your kids play carefully with this, food colour and stain clothes. You can add glitter to make extra pretty sculptures, and cookie cutters for perfect shapes. A fun idea is to roll out some dough, each put your hand prints on the dough and later paint ‘Lock down 2020’ on it, so you’ll always remember when you made it!
When the kids have made their creation, you can pop it in the oven at 100 degrees celsius, checking every half an hour or so. Thin pieces can take 45-60 minutes, while thicker pieces can take up to 2 hours.
This is something kids can keep forever, so make sure you write their name and date on the back!
Write your own stories
Time: 1-2 hours
Difficulty: Medium
This one will really test the kids’ imaginations! This combines literacy with art where you can check up on their spellings too! If you have an older sibling, maybe they’d like to make a book for their younger sibling that they could read to them.
All you need for this one is some sheets of plain paper, a stapler, a ruler, pens and pencils and some imagination!
Get a pile of around 5-7 sheets of paper, and staple twice in the middle of these sheets. Your child now has a blank book to write in, this will help them draw/ write extra neat! Get them to plan their story line out first, so when they put in onto their blank book, they know they won’t need to start again.
It’s best to draw some lines for the child to write on, and get them to write in pencil first, so you can correct any mistakes. Encourage them to draw pictures on every other page too, so the book has lots of colour and life.
Again, once they’ve made their masterpiece, make sure you get them to write their name on the front cover and date the back, so you’ll remember when they made their very own book!
So there you have it – 6 creative and fun ideas for the week, which will both teach your children and entertain them too! It may be difficult with all the kids at home; trying to occupy them as well as teach them, but just take your time and enjoy it. Mr Ballard made a point of not putting yourself under too much pressure, as everyone is in the same boat, and parents aren’t expected to make the same progress as teachers would have!
If you’ve enjoyed this article, or if you’ve made any of the above, send us some pictures on our Facebook page – we’d love to see them!
Photo credit:
Card photo created by freepik – www.freepik.com
Hand photo created by freepik – www.freepik.com
Christmas photo created by freepik – www.freepik.com
Watercolor photo created by bearfotos – www.freepik.com
If you’ve enjoyed this article, or if you’ve made any of the above, send us some pictures on our Facebook page – we’d love to see them!