Craft Ideas for Nursery Children
- Nursery school-age children enjoy making crafts as much as older children. It allows them to exert some independence and to show their own unique, creative perspectives. Whether you are a Sunday school teacher, a preschool teacher or a parent of a nursery school-age child, there are a number of crafts that you can introduce that will provide hours of entertainment.
- Most children enjoy getting messy and using their hands to do it. Finger paint is a craft medium for nursery school-age children that will allow them to be creative and get messy at the same time. Dip children's hands in finger paints and have them press their handprints onto colored paper to make different shapes. One idea is to make the handprints into a bunch of lilies. Another option is to make a turkey. Have them use both hands to make spiders. Allow the children to be creative and make different designs out of their handprints.
- Although some may think of insects as creepy crawlies, crafts revolving around these creatures can be fun and informative for young children. One insect idea is to make a paper chain caterpillar. These caterpillars are made by linking strips of paper together to form long chains and then adding eyes and faces to them. You can also add antennae to the caterpillar. Another idea is to use the round cups of egg cartons to make different insects. Children can paint the cups different colors and attach construction paper legs to make them look like bugs. For example, make a ladybug with black and red paint.
- Most nursery school-age children are very familiar with different nursery rhymes. You can use these nursery rhymes to design crafts. For example, if you want to use "Little Bo Peep," you could have children make lambs out of construction paper and cotton balls. Or if you want to make a craft for "Mary, Mary Quite Contrary," have the children use tissue paper and pipe cleaners to make flowers for Mary's flower garden.
- Pasta jewelry is an easy craft that helps work on fine motor skills in nursery school-age children. To make pasta jewelry, such as necklaces or bracelets, choose different types of pasta with holes in it, such as macaroni, wagon wheels or ziti. Have children feed pasta onto lengths of yarn and then decorate it with acrylic paints.
