What Are Free Summer Crafts for Kids?
"Mom, I'm bored!" This clarion call rises from your children shortly after they have started summer vacation and, if you're busy, it's hard to dream up engaging activities to keep them occupied. Before you hear the "I'm bored" cry, round up summer crafts and some supplies so you're ready and your kids are happily busy.
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Nature Crafts
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Summer is the best time for your kids to be outside, enjoying the breeze, getting a little sun and learning about nature. Make "fossils" using homemade dough and shells, twigs or hard-shelled bugs. Make the fossil dough using 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup cold coffee, 1 cup used coffee grounds and 1/2 cup salt. Measure out all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix them together. Knead the dough until it has a smooth "doughy" consistency, then work it into balls and flatten them on wax paper. The kids can press their outdoor treasures into the clay, leaving the fossil impressions behind. Allow the fossils to dry fully before displaying them.
If your kids would rather bring the outside indoors, have them collect rocks that are the right size for a paperweight. Using acrylic paints, let your kids unleash their creativity on their rocks, painting designs on them. After the paint has dried, allow them to carefully paint varnish on their creations. These rocks can also be used to line your garden.
Gardening and Painting Crafts
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Some summer crafts involve gardening and seeds. Supervise your children as they place a paper towel into an aluminum pie dish, add damp cotton wool and then sprinkle vegetable seeds, such as water cress and mustard, on top of the cotton wool. Use this craft as a science and growing lesson for your younger children, showing them how sunlight and water enable the seeds to sprout into small plants.
Your children can make also make windowsill planters using empty yogurt cups, acrylic paints and paint brushes. Give a clean yogurt cup to each child and have them paint the cups with a base paint. Once the base paint has dried, have each child paint a design on his cup. Allow the cups to dry, then use them as planters for small plants.
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Chalk Art
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Give your kids a bucket of large, colored chalk pieces on a sunny morning, send them outside and let them make designs. Have a contest to see who makes the best design. Because chalk is washable, the next rainstorm will wash the chalk away ---- or your children can wash their designs away with water from the garden hose.
Outdoor Crafts
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You don't have to be close to the beach to make sandcastles. With a sandpit, buckets and an ample water supply to help the sand stick together, your children can build their own sandcastles, then decorate them with leaves, bird feathers and small stones.
Give your kids paintbrushes and a bucket half-filled with water and food coloring, then let them loose to "paint" the sides of your house or the garden walls. Because you used food coloring, it shouldn't stain your walls.
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