African Arts & Crafts for Kids

Kente cloth design

Kids can learn about Africa while creating fun arts and crafts projects. Some of the projects make interesting decorations, while wearing and playing with the others provides added fun. Africa has a rich history of arts and crafts that provide many ideas for replication. Many projects require just simple supplies found around the home. However, they can also be created with higher quality materials for a more sophisticated craft for older kids.

Hats and Cloth

Paper kufi hat

Kids love to create crafts that they can wear. Have kids make paper or felt kufi hats. Traditional African kufi hats have tops of bright red, yellow, and green, with black used around the hat brim. The simple shape of the kufi hat makes it a very simple craft to complete with kids, using either paper or felt.

This African craft imitates the cloth used to make some articles of clothing in Africa. Weavers create kente cloth by hand on a loom then sew long strips together. The colors have special meanings. After reading about the meaning of the colors, have kids use markers to make a bright line design on thin strips of white paper. If desired, tape all the pieces together to simulate the making of a large piece of kente cloth.

Crafts to Play

Traditional wood mancala game

Make some crafts for kids to play. Mancala, or kalah, challenges the strategy skills of both kids and adults. Its simple directions make it a suitable game for children of any age. Make this game easily out of a cardboard or foam egg carton and some pebbles, marbles, or beans. Then teach them how to play this skill-building African game.

Have younger children make a drum. Drums have long been a part of African culture. Kids love playing drums and making it themselves only adds to the fun. Create this craft from large, recyclable coffee cans with lids. Use fun foam, felt, paper, twine, feathers, markers, or any suitable items to decorate the drum with an African design.

Decorative crafts

African mask craft

Crafts kids can hang in their rooms might include an African mask. Traditional African masks often feature animal motifs or distorted human faces in bright colors. Make them from brightly colored construction paper, cut into a face shape on which you glue or color distorted or exaggerated facial features of animals or humans. Older kids may enjoy making the masks from plastic milk jugs. These make interesting mask models.

Help kids learn about useful African objects with another decorative craft by making a papier maché bowl with an African design or a mkeka mat. These simulate the types of everyday household objects that might be found in an African home. Make the bowl using an easy papier maché recipe and a real bowl as your mold. The mkeka mat is woven from strips of paper in any African color. You might also make it with felt strips.

References

• Multiple African craft listing
• Kente cloth description
• African masks