How to turn everyday crafts for kids and kids art into art  that the children do themselves, without copying an adults model & why it’s so important for them to do so

Most of the crafts for kids  you find online is not very creative. Art for kids on the other hand, is much more so than the  crafts that is all over the web.There are so many so called creative arts and crafts projects for kids that don’t have an ounce of creativity in them yet, adults looking for them automatically think that if it’s crafts….it  must be creative.

People that are into kids art, are more into the children expressing themselves  through the process of creating with various media. Crafts is more of the “let’s make something for Easter, or another holiday, genre”. Almost all of the websites that promote these  “copycat crafts” call them creative and many parents and teachers fall for it.

If it is a copycat crafts, which is most of the crafts that you will find in books and online then they are NOT creative.

Not everyone, wants or knows how to give their children real art. There is a definite need for crafts, yet there is also a need to give children crafts that is developmentally appropriate for them.

Crafts that makes them think, solve problems, actually be creative and feel good about themselves for the creation that they have created on their own.

If you want to learn how to turn craft sessions into creative crafts then you will want to learn about a system I call Educational Arts and Crafts. You can check out my 2 e books for the price of one, called Learning through Crafts, and Developing Your Child’s Inner Artist,  here that will give you many, many ideas on crafts and art that are perfectly suited for young children.

For crafts to be creative, as I noted before there has to be a lot of room for the children to make choices, to think, solve problems and take their own initiative for their projects to look very different from the other children’s projects.

There are 5 categories in the Educational crafts system. Once you know what they are all about you can easily figure out which are the good crafts for kids and which to stay away from.

They are as follows:

1. Cafeteria style
2. Process art products
3. Process art products with prepared shapes (templates)
4. Decorations
5. Transformed art from craft techniques

I am  going to explain each one so that you can use them as you see fit.

1-Cafeteria style:

Cafeteria style gets its name from its namesake, the cafeteria. Projects under the category cafeteria offer choices to help create the project in mind.In cafeteria style activities the adult decides the end product but not the way it should look, just the base and what materials to offer.

Example: A puppet:  The adult has the children create a basic puppet and then offers a whole array of materials to decorate the puppet. This leaves lots of room for creative thought and planning and decision-making. There is no preconceived idea of how the puppets should look and each will look different.

It is a good idea to start collecting various materials that you can use for these projects and storing them to have on hand.

Also be aware that too much is no good especially for very young children. Do not overwhelm them with too many materials at first.The older they are, the more you can present and in less finished form.

Younger children may need various  papers cut into a few different shapes to choose from…older more experienced children may be able to look at a piece of metallic paper or piece of velvet, decide what they need out of it and cut it out themselves.

Many traditional arts and crafts projects can be adapted to an educational art approach.

Example: Bumblebees

Instead of designing the picture yourself and then having the children copy what you have created, you can collect many of the materials and shapes that you would have wanted to use, add some more materials and allow the children to create their bumblebees. (In the manner that their age and developmental level will dictate)you will be amazed at what some children can come up with as long as there is no expectation for the project to come out looking a particular way.

2-Process only art products:

Process only art is when the children do art that is only for the process of the activity itself not the product. Much painting and drawing has no end goal in mind other than enjoyment and aesthetic awareness. There are many educators that believe that any projects with an end goal should not be done with children and that children should only do process only art.

The problem is many parents and educators and children themselves need projects sometimes and there is a way to combine process only art with projects.These activities allow the children to do activities that are process art like all of the different wonderful painting activities out there, yet once the children are done these art activity projects can be made into cards, place mats, wall hangings etc. Children get to use their creativity and sensory skills and then have a real project.

3-Process only art products with templates: (This is almost exactly as the category above with a little twist.)

Instead of doing the activity first and then making it into something, this way you give the child a paper in the shape of whatever you want the project to be and they then do the process only art activity on this paper.This is often done when the adult wants to give a holiday activity and does not want to make a traditional arts and crafts project. She therefore uses a shape from the holiday for the children to do process only art on.The shape must be large enough to give the children room to work. Especially if it is something complicated like a menorah but even simple shapes like circles and triangles can be used.

4-Decorations:

There are a few holidays and themes that call for decorations. These decorations can include some of   the process art and various ornaments to string and hang.  There are holidays like Christmas that need decorations for trees and houses and holidays like Sukkot that need wall hangings and stringing decorations.Activities like mobiles which are purely for decorative purposes are included in this category.

5-Transformed art

I need to make something very clear. Crafts for adults has nothing to do with crafts for children. Crafts for adults includes some of the most wonderful techniques and activities like basket weaving, woodworking, macrame, stained glass, etc.

The problem is when adults want children to create crafts like adults that  children are not developmentally ready for. That is how copycat crafts was born.  Adults wanted children to  make the same kinds of beautiful things the adults were making. They did not understand that children are not adults and are not ready for adult activities. There is a way though for children to use some of these craft techniques without resorting to the adult projects.  This way is by using some of these techniques to create transformed art.

These are activities where you take any old box, juice can, glass plate, things made out of wood etc and then use one of these crafts techniques to transform the box or can into piece of artwork that you can actually use. This way the children are concentrating on the technique itself without worrying if their project will come out exactly the way the adults does (Some crafts people call these activities altered art.)

If you follow this way of doing creative crafts for kids you will see a great upsurge in the children’s creativity and interest in doing crafts as well.