ideas for "craft party" for 5 year olds - PLEASE

[jeangenie]

somehow DD1 has managed to persaude me that she should have a "christmas craft party" with 5 or 6 friends.
They are all aged 5 and there will be 6 of them I think. Someone give me some good ideas as to what crafts we could do PLEASE !!!
I was thinking of making some Xmas shaped biscuits the day before and getting lots of different icing for them to do. I was also thinking of getting calendar blanks for them to decorate but this might be a bit boring, what else would be good? any recommendations of craft books I could look at ?
(will have an xmas themed video in my back pocket to throw on when they've made their mess/had a collective melt-down!)

[Mercy]

I made pomanders with the dc this weekend. You need cloves, red ribbon and oranges (actually I used satsumas which was easier for them to pierce with the cloves). Someone posted a good link on the thread I started.

[filthymindedvixen]

salt dough decorations to be covered in glitter etc with rinbbon on.

ditto tea light holders.

pre-make some peppermint cream mix and let them cut into star shapes, to put into little cellophane bags and take home (bags from lakeland)

(will look up recipes in a mo if you are interested)

[Mercy]

Oh yes, saltdough decorations - I mustn't forget those!

[Niecie]

Have a look at the Baker Ross website. They have all sorts of kits for parties. You could try, glass painting, decorating mugs, making picture frames and that kind of thing.

Loads of ideas and a link here

Usborne books do a couple of Christmas craft books. They have more different books than I thought!

[lilolilmanchester]

Have a look at Baker Ross Might give you some ideas, even if you don't want to buy from there.

[lilolilmanchester]

snap!

[filthymindedvixen]

salt dough

Ingredients
4 cups flour
1 cup salt
1-1/2 cups hot water (from tap)
2 teaspoons vegetable oil (optional)

Mix the salt and flour together, then gradually add the water until the dough becomes elastic. (Some recipes call for 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil at this point.) If your mixture turns out too sticky, simply add more flour. If it turns out too crumbly, simply add more water. Knead the dough until it?s a good consistency?then get out rolling pins, cups, bowls, straws, cookie cutters, plastic utensils, and let the fun begin!

If you want colored dough, mix food coloring, powdered drink mix, or paint into the water before adding it to the dry ingredients. Or you can paint your creations after baking them at 200 degrees. Baking times will vary depending on the size and thickness of the object, but make sure that all of it is hard. If the dough starts to darken before cooking is complete, cover with aluminum foil.

You can store your salt dough in a sealed container in the refrigerator, but usually not more than a couple of days.

[jeangenie]

oh great ideas - keep 'em coming!!!

definately like the peppermint cream idea - could you post recipe please

am going to pop over to waterstones at lunchtime and see what they have in way of craft books

will check out baker ross next

[ineedascoobysnack]

usborne books are very good for this kind of thing

decorations for tree always nice

[Twiglett]

salt dough .. and crimbo decorations

or baker ross and bought in

[MaureenMLovesmincepies]

I've got a fab and easy tree decoration to make with craft foam and old cd's. I'll need to upload a picture for you to see though and I haven't got batteries in the camera! I will do it tomorrow if you wish! Its very easy, you can precut all the bits and use glue dots, so its not messy either.

[Bink]

We're doing just exactly this (6 and 7 year olds though, and I hope I hope steady enough that they can do their making without intensive supervision) for dd - we are going to have peg-doll-angel-making, "stained-glass" effect decorations (ie coloured tissue which you glue to show through black cut-out card shapes), and I got a job lot of blank cards which play "a choice of 3 festive tunes" (sounds like a Private Eye Christmas tat special doesn't it?) which they can decorate with stamps and stickers and transfers. (Everything is from Yellow Moon - Baker Ross sister company - as YM isn't quite as "buy in bulk" as BR.)

Meanwhile I will be making mini puff pastry mince pies & anyone who feels peckish can come and decorate those with pink and green sugar glitter.

Decorating food is always a good one - even just plain biscuits (or cupcakes if pushing the boat out) and those tubes of Writing Icing will have them absorbed for ages.

[jeangenie]

yes please Maureen
bink - are we mad? DD1 is soooo excited though, and the guest list is of grave importance as I have limited to 6 kids altogether - I have never seen her as serious as when deciding who to invite
how many are you having?
will definately do biscuits to decorate - need some xmas cutters - yikes!

[Bink]

Re numbers I don't yet know and it may be madness. There're 19 in her class & form still is to ask them all - but I know at least 5 will be away - I'm taking a punt on there not being more than a dozen. I am raking in some help though, so it may be OK. Or it may be madness.

It's still less ambitious than dd & ds's own plans for all this, which involved asking everyone they know & covered three sheets of A4 timetabling, in columns specifying supervision responsibilities for Computer Play and Dancing (and about four other categories of entertainment) as well as the Decoration-Making. Ds in particular is really quite disappointed it's all going to be so manageable.

[MaureenMLovesmincepies]

Hopefuly my picture in on my profile! Its a bit shiney, but then it is a cd!

You need to stick two cd's front to front and then cut of shapes for hat, trim, holly, berries and 5 black stone-like shapes each. You could use craft foam for the eyes and nose, but I have used orange pom poms and big googly eyes.

If you use glue dots you can pre-stick everything, leaving the backing on them, so that the children can just peal the back off and stick.

Finish them off with a peice of ribbon on the back, first attached to the cd and then again on the back of the hat. This will stop the hat from falling forward.

Have fun!

[MaureenMLovesmincepies]

Oh the cd's. I usually pick up all the internet freebies at the check out in supermarkets! They don't mind!

[Bink]

Have you had yours jeangenie? We had ours today and although I am still so shattered I can't find the strength to put the flour away (let alone clear up the rest of the mess) I thought I would do a debriefing, & consequential tips. Scroll down for tips if you don't want blow-by-blow.

1. There were 12 all in, inc. 8yo ds & his friend (a nice, quiet, thoughtful girl) whom he vainly tried to persuade to spend the entire time playing Lego Star Wars - she came & joined the rest of the girls, & to his nearly credit he was not impossible to persuade to come & be with everyone else too. It was a good number, but any more control would have been lost (and control was needed).

1. With that number I did fierce rationing of the baking time - I had three little girls at a time, for precisely 20 mins a session, which turns out to be exactly the right time to make your own whole batch of puff-pastry mini mince pies. Everyone who wasn't on their baking turn was being supervised at the crafts table in the next room.

1. The absolute hit of the mince pie making was a jar of Festive Sprinkles from Whittards (£5) - microscopic candy canes, snowflakes, gingerbread men & Christmas trees. I also had a store of weeny sugar stars left over from a cupcake kit. When they'd made their mince pies they then started decorated these tiny mounds with total intensity & care - one even made a "forest" with the trees. Truly fascinating to see how very different things they made.

1. The hit of the crafts was the musical cards - everybody wanted to make one. Democratic too - didn't need any sort of crafty ability, you just made to your own standard. And the inserts work surprisingly well. Highly recommend.

1. I had a DVD of The Nutcracker playing. Anyone who was feeling not quite in the swim could watch that - in the end most of them did, for a bit, but nobody did for the whole thing; and I know from some thundering that Hilarious Joke Copy Dancing was done.

1. The not-hit was the stained-glass cookies - need lots of care, & lots of lead time for the baking, & can't be done on auto-pilot.

1. Party bags were what you'd made at the party - but I think I should have had some Christmas sweetie tat to chuck in too.

Consequential tips:

• you need two adults min. - you just do. Somebody is always going to be threatening to cut their own hair with the scissors while somebody else can't get the glue to work;

• decorating food is the simple all-time surefire success;

• have something on the TV as atmosphere, & retreat for the shyer ones; and

• have some sweetie tat on hand for going home.

[serinsingingcarols]

Decorate baubles with spray paint and glittery bits and bobs.

Make Crackers.

Make snowmen out of marzipan/fondant icing.

Cut out a cardboard ring and decorate with cut out holly leaves and berries, made from shiny paper, funky foam or whatever you have to hand. Then tie a nice gold/silver ribbon on the bottom and you have Christmas wreath.

Make lots of gingerbread house walls/roofs and let the kids assemble them and decorate with sweets, (just to keep the dentist in a job!).

Not very original I know but all things my Brownies enjoyed from when I was a leader.

[purpleduck]

you need....


lots of vodka for yourself for after

[MrsWeasleysmagicmincepies]

sounds like a great party my DC would love all that making!

WE have recently made stained glass windows like these and shrinkies, which my DC and friends can't get enough of.

I saw a lovely idea but maybe to fussy for groups. Blow up a balloon to about large bauble size and cover it in paste. Wrap nice wool all around it and when the glue is dry pop the balloon and you have a nice decoration.

[jeangenie]

Hi Bink, sorry just saw this

yes, we did it on Dec 8th. It was a lot of fun. Like you I had festive movies playing in the other room so the kids could wander in and out. I had 7 of them all aged 5 (and my DD2 who is 2.10 wandered into the thick of it after her nap, and had a ball!)

absolutely agree that you need two adults, one of the other mums I am friendly with stayed to help me (and actually said afterwards that she had really enjoyed it so that was nice)

we did three main activities, all the kids joined in the first two and then they broke up a bit after that

1. xmas shaped biscuits which me and the DDs had made the night before - stars, holly leaves, candy canes, father xmases, rudolphs, angels etc - I had a large array of tubed icing, balls, jellies, sprinkles and so on. They loved doing this. As you said it was amazing the different approaches applied - one girl worked really hard on just two biscuits, painstakingly applying her things and not being swayed by anyone or anything while others ended up with plates piled with 9 or 10. Main challenge here was trying not to let them eat all the biscuits immediately - I couldn't have dealt with the sugar rush aftermath!

1. then we did xmas decorations with sparkley pipecleaners and pony beads, easy to do once I showed them the basics and they loved the results

1. final thing was decorating plain paper plates with pompoms and felt tips to look like xmas characters, I was on hand to cut card antlers, hats, stars etc and they loved that

I served homemade pizza and popcorn to the kids and mulled wine and mince pies to the mums and dads when they came to collect. The kids went home happy with their spoils and the mums and dads happy with an afternoon off just before xmas!!!

some photos here

[Bink]

I love the pony bead & sparkly pipecleaner decorations - they're on my list for next time!

Funny, in the end, how similarly you & I did our events ... except that I wasn't as generously hospitable & didn't do the mulled wine. Well done you!

[jeangenie]

ah but bink you MADE the mince pies with the kids there - I COULD NOT have done that - no way! my biscuits were made the day before and everything else was done with minimum mess potential (my kids asked for glitter and I almost roared NO they asked for paints and met a similar response)
I enjoyed the mulled wine etc with the parents - I don' get to see them often so was good to "bond" a bit

[Bink]

Totally agree about paints (that was such a no-no I even headed it off on the invitation - "we will only be cutting & sticking so no painting overalls needed") - I did allow glitter but only because I have a powerful hoover. (Ds had a stubborn bit of gold glitter beneath his left eye all weekend.)