Spring Break = Kid Craft Time

This week is Spring Break for us!  My daughter is really excited for the break and while I am really excited to be able to spend more time with my kiddos, I also realize that I need to have a plan.  My children both like / need structure and in order to help avoid excess conflict in our home I have decided to come up with a plan.

My kids both love to craft and I anticipate we will be doing a lot of crafting, science projects and other activities that should prove to be a lot of fun!  (At least I hope so!)  I have worked craft time into my schedule for the week.  Seriously.

One of my favorite things to do is to let my kids have a variety of crafting supplies and let them use their imagination to discover a great and creative way to use the supplies with limited direction from me!  We call it Free Crafting Time (or unstructured craft time).

Free crafting time is a really important part of helping children learn and grow.  During free crafting time children are able to work on fine motor skills, cutting and gluing skills.  They also have the chance to let their creativity run wild which is not only fun but an important part of being a kid.

The other day at our house I laid out a wide variety of crafting supplies from CraftProjectIdeas.com and my kids got busy creating!

Then she cut, assembled, glued and added lots of decorations of course!  And we created a lot of fun little bunny and flower shaped crafts!

My daughter especially loved using the squiggly eyes, glow in the dark beads and fun colored pipe cleaners.  My son really loved the jingle bells and pom poms.  They both had a lot of fun exploring our new stash of fun and brightly colored art and craft supplies.

My daughter made two puppets and one magnet for the fridge. (And would have kept on creating if it wasn't dinner time!)

Both my kids had a lot of fun and it was a great way for them to explore their creativity as well!

My son was able to work on some fine motor skills including practicing cutting which is perfect for a three year old to work on.

We definitely have a few unstructured craft times planned in our Spring break schedule this week.  Do you?

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