Arts & Crafts Websites and/or Books???

[zwieback]

I am so unbelievably art/craft stupid and I'm trying to keep DD busy throughout the day with arts and crafts. She loves making art, coloring and all that. But, I just have no ideas except to do some of the same few things she's done at school. So, I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions for good websites with ideas and/or any good books that have some neat ideas. DD is 3 and a couple of books I've seen (at Michael's) just didn't appeal to me for her age.

Here are some things we have and that she enjoys using -- pom poms, pipe cleaners, foam letters and shapes, clothes pins (already did the reindeer thing with those), popsicle sticks, contruction paper and of course, paints and crayons.

Any suggestions and ideas for websites/books that would be good for 3-4 year olds would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!:)

[jabelt]

Family Fun is a great magazine with crafts for a variety of ages. They've published a couple of books that you might find helpful and they have a website too.

[clairea]

If you google "preschool crafts" or "preschool lesson plans" you will get several good sites that are designed for preschool teachers, but you could also easily do the crafts at home. A couple that I used a lot when teaching preschool were enchantedlearning.com and preschooleducation.com .

I also encourage you to just give your daughter a lot of "free art" time with her craft materials. You may be amazed at how long she can entertain herself without any kind of organized craft. Both my own kids and the kids I taught in preschool always enjoyed coloring, painting, cutting, and gluing things together to express their own artistic "vision."

[zwieback]

I also encourage you to just give your daughter a lot of "free art" time with her craft materials. You may be amazed at how long she can entertain herself without any kind of organized craft. Both my own kids and the kids I taught in preschool always enjoyed coloring, painting, cutting, and gluing things together to express their own artistic "vision."


Oh, that's pretty much what she does -- things on her own. I've only done a few actual projects and they were a fish and a pumpkin just like she did at school. I REALLY have no ideas when it comes to this stuff, so I'd just like to have a few to do.

[sweeps]

I also encourage you to just give your daughter a lot of "free art" time with her craft materials. You may be amazed at how long she can entertain herself without any kind of organized craft. Both my own kids and the kids I taught in preschool always enjoyed coloring, painting, cutting, and gluing things together to express their own artistic "vision."

I agree. Gather up a bunch of all different kids of materials and let her have at it! I used childfun.com a lot for crafts-they have all kinds of themes with activities, art, and craft ideas.

[mightyh]

I second the Family Fun website for ideas if you want to direct the art projects a little more. Their magazine subscription is not that expensive, either, and it has really great activities, cooking with kids, ideas, tons of crafts and lots of really fun ideas for the holidays in each month.
www.familyfun.com

[IBouteille]

I hope I don't get castigated for this, but I honestly think the little ghost is cute. (And I'm going to make lots of the little angels for my Christmas tree!)

http://www.tamponcrafts.com/halloween.html

[KristaMB]

I also like the Family Fun website.

I've had good luck finding children's craft books at the library. In our library's children section, they have all sorts of drawing books (my DS loves the Ed Emberly ones), cookbooks and craft books.

[mgs]

crayola.com has a lot of different craft ideas for use with different household items along with their products of course. But most people with kids at home have crayons,scissors, glue, markers...

they have a lot of coloring pages you can print and daily craft ideas. Usually very seasonal.

another place to get ideas is pbs.org. If she likes sesame street there are a lot of coloring pages there as well. (it might be pbskids.org)

I looked up how to make a piggy bank and they had one made with a tissue box covered in construction paper and decorated like a school bus. I think I am going to make one like we made in Brownies when I was little. An old otmeal container wth a slot in the lid. You cut a peice of construction paper that will fit around the container and glue it, then decorate it as you like! I had that thing forever!:p