Christmas is a holiday where all kinds of kids crafts are created at home and in the school environment. Crafts for kids, however should be an activity that should bring fun and excitement to children’s activities aside from adding a bonding to the adults that are doing the projects with them. Educational arts and crafts is a way of doing crafts with children where they are not blindly copying the adults model but are creating things that they are capable of creating at their own developmental level. When children create at their own level a number of things occur. It creates a great feeling about themselves, as who can feel good about crafts projects that are copycat models of someone else’s. Children who create their own projects without adult input feel much better about themselves. A further benefit educational arts and crafts gives children, is its allowance for so much more creativity. There is very little that represses creativity more than having to copy anothers work. Educational art encompasses a few different types of activities. There is the cafeteria style that allows children to choose materials to work with, there is process only art where the process is what counts along with a few more. The point of it is that all of the crafts under educational arts and crafts should be age appropriate, and allow for freedom of creation and expression. Below I will give you 2 clear cut, almost effortless Christmas craft ornaments that you can make. The first one uses plastic throwaway cups: The children will now love to color their cups using only permanent markers that work on plastic. Try to get the kids to cover up the cup with markers as much as they can. When they are done, take a cookie sheet and put the cups upside down on it and put in the over at around 350 degrees. Watch them melt in the oven for a few minutes until they are the right size that you like. Make sure you keep a close eye on them so they don’t totally burn up. The cups and the tray of course, get very hot so the children must be kept away until they cool. When they are cool, make a hole in the center and use colorful ribbon to hang as an ornament for your tree. For our next craft you will use any unused or not needed dvd’s or cd’s. Next step: Give the kids all types of things to decorate them with and them string them up on the tree. There are loads of ways to decorate the cd’s. You can color with permanent markers, glue and glitter them, collage over them, decoupage over them, and decorate them with whatever shiny, decorative materials you can find. Once they are done, get some pretty ribbon and hang them from your tree. If you want to see what a crafts acitivity done in the cafeteria style is like then check out this Hanukkah Crafts collage

Christmas is a holiday where all kinds of kids crafts are created at home and in the school environment.

Crafts for kids, however should be an activity that should bring fun and excitement to children’s activities aside from adding a bonding to the adults that are doing the projects with them.

Educational arts and crafts is a way of doing crafts with children where they are not blindly copying the adults model but are creating things that they are capable of creating at their own developmental level.

When children create at their own level a number of things occur.

It creates a great feeling about themselves, as who can feel good about crafts projects that are copycat models of someone else’s. When the crafts project is totally created by the kids themselves, it makes them feel much better about themselves.

Creativity is also a wonderful reason to switch to educational arts and crafts.

There is hardly anything more that cramps a child’s creativity than being expected to totally copy and adults rendition of a project.

There are between 4-6 kinds of art type of activites listed under educational art.

There is the cafeteria style that allows children to choose materials to work with, there is process only art where the process is what counts along with a few more.

The point of it is that all of the crafts under educational arts and crafts should be age appropriate, and allow for freedom of creation and expression.

Explained below are two simple and inexpensive Christmas crafts activities that you can make from items around your home.

The first one uses plastic throwaway cups:

Offer the kids permanent markers in many colors for them to decorate their cups. Encouraging the children to color all over the cup will make for a nicer ornament.

When they are done, take a cookie sheet and put the cups upside down on it and put in the over at around 350 degrees. Leaving them in the oven between 2-3 minutes will allow them to go down to a good size. Keep an eye on them so they don’t disintegrate in the oven. This part must be done by adults only as it gets very hot.

When they are cool, make a hole in the center and use colorful ribbon to hang as an ornament for your tree.

The second activity is a neat way to use all of your old, ready to throw away cd’s.

Next: Add lots of decorative materials and get them hung on the tree.

There so many methods of beautifying the cd’s.

You can color with permanent markers, glue and glitter them, collage over them, decoupage over them, and decorate them with whatever shiny, decorative materials you can find.

Once they are done, get some pretty ribbon and hang them from your tree.

If you want to see what a crafts acitivity done in the cafeteria style is like then check out this Hanukkah Crafts collage

Faige Kobre is a former teacher and director of Early Childhood Education. She is the founder of The Educational Art Institute which teaches adults how to teach children art and give crafts that raises self esteem, teaches thinking and problem solving skills and explodes their creativity. kids crafts projects ideas for self esteem and creativity

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