#craftactivitypacks

Your child’s creative play has a central role in their social, cognitive, and emotional development. Art and crafts activities are associated with developmental benefits and gaining skills that enable children to have long-term achievements in school and later in life. Craft activity packs are not just a pleasant pastime for kids; actually they help with building their personality and prepare them for their adult life.

Children are naturally creative, but today’s society can hinder their creativity. Childhood development experts refer to the so-called ‘creativity crisis’, a decline in children’s creativity observed since 1990. Possible causes are the rigid education system, lack of free play, and excessive use of technology. Promoting creativity in today’s world can be quite a challenge for busy parents.

Developing Creativity at Different Ages – How to Start and Encourage Creativity

Children’s activity packs for different ages are one of the simplest ways to encourage your child’s creativity and keep them busy. Crafts play a vital role throughout all stages of childhood development and are divided into the following three major categories:

·         Early learning crafts

·         Toddler crafts

·         School age crafts

Other ways to start developing your child’s creativity at any age include:

·         Encourage questions

Asking ‘Why?’ endlessly until you get a satisfactory answer is actually a very effective problem-solving strategy. Parents can feel exhausted after answering to dozens of ‘Why?’ questions, but this kind of information seeking follows a child’s natural development.

You should encourage questions as much as possible by responding with enthusiasm and trying to provide the real answers. If you don’t know the answer, look it up on Google – you may discover some interesting things yourself!

·         Teach them divergent thinking

This means you should not provide the solution to a problem, but encourage the child to generate as many ideas as possible. For instance, they want to build a fort – encourage them to create different structures by using various objects around the home instead of telling them how to do it. Help them find the benefits and drawbacks of every possible solution and show them how to integrate several ideas into a better one.

·         Encourage team work

Working together is a key element in the creative process. Get siblings or other family members to take part into the brainstorming process.

·         Give them free blocks of time

Our culture of putting everything into a tight schedule does not really encourage creativity. Make sure you allow your child free, uninterrupted blocks of time for constructive or creative play, as this requires a tremendous amount of time.

The Benefits of Doing Crafts

Crafts and art activities provide families with a wide range of developmental and parenting benefits:

Developing life skills

The following life skills can be developed through arts and crafts:

·         Communication skills

When drawing a picture, your child learns how to communicate visually.

·         Problem-solving skills

Creating something requires the little artist to test multiple possibilities and work through various challenges. For instance: ‘This colour does not look right here – what should I try instead?’

·         Social and emotional skills

Group craft activities enable children to practice sharing and taking turns, as well as appreciating other children’s work. This contributes to building a positive self-image and to foster good mental health.

·         Fine motor skills

An action as simple as snipping paper with scissors to obtain definite shapes or squeezing glue from a bottle in a controlled manner helps developing a child’s fine motor skills and control.

Working through feelings and emotions

Crafts enable children to express themselves at a fundamental level. Creating a finished piece of artwork helps children express their feelings in a meaningful way and let go of emotions in a positive manner.

Developing the executive function and teaching self-regulation

Executive function is a set of mental skills that enable us to pay attention, switch focus, manage time, multitask, remember details, and do things based on experience. As adults, we already know that things don’t always work or turn out as expected, but kids have yet to learn important life skills such as patience, self-control, flexibility, and reasoning. Arts and crafts promote these vital life lessons that enable us to live happy and fulfilled lives as adults.

Tips for Including Arts and Crafts in your Child’s Activities

Put up with the mess

The thought of cleaning all the mess resulting from crafts activities deters many parents from providing their children with this amazing experience. However, the time spent doing experiments with food colouring or painting with glitter is so much more valuable than watching a screen, no matter how educational the program is. Kids will always remember how much fun they had and how clever they felt when they found a solution for expressing their ideas. Organising the activity outside and wearing older clothes are some of the methods you can use to minimise ‘damage’.

Provide free access to safe craft materials

Depending on your child’s age, you can store some crafts materials where they can reach them. Choose Play-Doh, washable colours, coloured paper, kid scissors, and other items they can use without constant supervision. Avoid acrylic paints and permanent markers. Consider recyclables that kids can use as building blocks or as support for paintings and patterns, as they are absolutely free.

Showcase your own creative abilities

Children see us adults as role models. If you enjoy crafting yourself, let them see you in action. You will inspire them to do the same and you will also show them their work does not have to be perfect.

Be indulgent with their creative whims

Kids’ ideas can seem a little far-fetched, but in fact you don’t need to put up with a lot of mess to enable them to exercise their creativity. As long as they are not causing any harm, it can be acceptable to let them use their hands for painting or take all the cardboard boxes in the house into the backyard to create a maze.

Use items you already have at home

You don’t need to spend a little fortune on craft activity packs or the most expensive watercolours. Children are not very picky and will often make do with resources you already have at home, such as household items, natural materials, and recycled materials. Some ideas you can put into practice right now include:

·         Making a puppet from cardboard tubes (kitchen towels/ toilet paper);

·         Use nature – trace around leaves, paint them, do rubbings – there are so many options;

·         Make binoculars from empty toilet roll tubes and send the kid to explore the garden with them;

·         Use uncooked pasta to create jewellery – shells and penne work best!

·         Use household items to make musical instruments, such as drums out of plastic containers or rice into a sealed plastic bottle to make a shaker.

Choose

Craft Packs for Kids

There are moments when parents need a quick fix to keep kids busy. Relying on screens all the time is not ideal as they come with numerous negative effects. Craft activity packs come to your rescue as they are immediately available, require no preparation on your part, and they keep the mess to a minimum. They can be used both at home and during travels, giving parents that much-needed time-out to relax and escape entertainment duties.

Why Craft Activity Packs are a Great Option

Craft packs for kids, such as the ones provided by Busy Nippers, come with great benefits for both kids and their parents or carers:

Less Mess

You don’t need to clean anything after your kid spends time working on our children’s craft activity packs as they don’t create any mess.

More Structured

Opting for more structured activities means that kids need less guidance from you and it enables them the opportunity to complete the activity with little or no help!

Available On the Go

You can take Busy Nippers craft activity packs with you while travelling or running an errand and you will also find them in various public spaces like cafes, restaurants, or healthcare facilities.

Can Personalise

Did you know that businesses can personalise the activity packs from Busy Nippers? Whether you’re running a promotional event or need branded packs for your waiting room or kids area, Busy nippers can customise packs to match your brand.

Come in a Range of Themes

The most popular themes are Easter, Christmas, Health, Safety etc. – they will keep your child entertained while being seasonal and teaching them along the way.