Making an American flag for a fourth of July crafts for kids is not as difficult as it may sound. If you already know about educational arts and crafts then you know our theory about giving children choices and freedom to make the craft they like within a certain parameter.
If you know that 4th of July crafts is what you want to make then a flag is a great July 4th crafts activity. I happen to love making flags with kids because they incorporate lots of great skills that kids need.
Though there are many art purists that will not ever give children a structure for a craft project, or even make any crafts projects, I believe that kids can be very creative within a structure. The structure in this case is that they are making flags. Once you know that the children will be making flags and that the theme is independence day crafts then you know that red, white and blue are the colors you will be working with
Below are some of the materials I offered to the children. Of course, you can offer any number of materials as long as they are wither red, white or blue. (preferable all)
I call this method of making crafts, cafeteria style. That is because they start out with the tray which is the background, in this case the flag template. They then get to choose from a variety of items like a cafeteria to decorate their flags with
It is very important to be aware of three things.
- Every child is going to make a flag according to his or her developmental level. When they are 3 years old, their flags will look very haphazard as the children will just basically slap materials onto the template.
- There is no reason for kids to be told to make their flag really look like the American flag. If we believe in creativity then the point is for us to allow the children to create a flag with the right colors but, allowing them to be as creative as possible
- You can display the American flag if you want and some of the children may take cues from the flag and try to add some stripes and stars. don’t expect it from the really young ones and don’t give more credit to the ones who do so.
After their flags are decorated and dry you can add something to hold the flag up.
You can use dowels and if you do so you will have to fold over part of the flag to keep it on. Or else you can just tape the dowel to the back of the flag using the same color tape as the template.
If you don’t have dowels, you can take a piece of tagboard and roll it up. As you roll it it looks like a stick and you can tape that to the template for the child to hold and wave.
No related posts.
