In a fit of uncharacteristic community spirit I've volunteered to do a craft table at out Tots Group. What was I thinking? What shall I do?

[BroccoliSpears]

It's a low table with a craft activity of some sort.

Usually around 10 or 12 children old enough and interested in the craft bit.

The children are aged between 15 months and 2ish I'd guess. No scissors.

In the past we've done lots of card making and collage and glitter. We've done sandpit. We've done making shakers with little bottles and bits of pasta. We've played with funnels. We've played with cornflour and water. We've made fireworks and Christmas decorations. We often do chalk drawing. There's always playdoh at another table anyway.

There doesn't need to be a finished product necessarily, but there can be.

I can't go and spend a fortune on materials. Stuff around the house would be best.

Please help me with an idea!!! Anyone seen anything good any groups you've been to?

[Lauriefairycake]

Toilet rolls wound round with wool/decorated stuck to card - instant pencil pot

[Spagblog]

masks?
Cut out shapes from cereal packets for them to decorate, add elastic...et voila!

[claricebeansmum]

And they could stick on cut out hearts for a Valentine's pencil pot!

[keeptakingthetablets]

One of our best was :

Plastic/polystyrene cups, stick and colour/paint.

Fill with compost (Small bag, £1-ish)

Buy/blag/beg tray of seedlings or small plants.

Let them get full of muck, let them water their creation, hope to god you bought strong enough plastic cups, hand over to Mummy


And run

[keeptakingthetablets]

Another one we did, which it's a bit late for now, but you could possibly do in spring, was to cut out a huge tree shape, get them to bring in autumn leaves/bark/spring leaves/grass, and stick them onto the shape.

[fruittea]

Biscuit icing - if IKEA still have their £1-for-20 gingerbread hearts, these are ideal, make up big pots of icing, lots of sprinkles, and disposable tablecloths!

[TooTicky]

How about using card from cereal boxes and drawing on an animal outline, then they can glue on bits of wool.

[BroccoliSpears]

Oh these are all excellent!

Keep them coming and I might even volunteer on a regular basis!

[GreebosWhiskers]

Our toddler group has a great craft lady volunteer at the mo.

This week she brought in lots of sticks of coloured plasticene that she got at the pound shop & heavy-grade sugar paper & let the wee ones 'paint' pictures by sticking wee bits of plasticene on the paper. 2.10yo dd3 made a fab flower garden with butterflies. The age range taking part was from about 18 months to nearly 3 (dd is the eldest just now) & they all managed fine.

Good luck

[BettySpaghetti]

Baker Ross are very good for basic craft stuff and ideas.

eg.foam or cardboard crowns that they can decorate with stickers, gems, pompoms

ditto fridge magnets

ditto bookmarks

ditto photo frames

[mustrunmore]

Go to B&Q and get lots of wallpaper samples and those paint colour strips; great for collage. Keep all your argos catalogues etc; great for a picture of favourite things!

Paper plates; good for making stuff. Cut out food pics from magazines, and the kids can glue on a meal collage!

rice shakers; colect yogyurt and jelly pots, bit of card stuck as a lid.

[mustrunmore]

-
paint a sheet of paper. Let it dry, then use a playdough tool or something to scrape a pic in.

[cluelessnchaos]

hot air balloons, cups stuck onto balloons with straws, only prob is if any kids have balloon phobia

[keeptakingthetablets]

Mustrun, that reminds me of one we did! We got them to make a "diary" - craft paper, punched and tied with string, and bits of the argos catalogue glued inside under headings like

I go to bed
Mummy plays in the garden

etc, etc.

Whatever you do,stay the devil away from glitter, our lot seemed to think it was some esoteric form of scalp treatment.

[BettySpaghetti]

Sorry meant to say on my post that I know you don't necessarily want to spend money but Baker Ross is good for nicking ideas from and maybe buying some things -look in their special offers section as theres uually some good bargains to be had

[maximummummy]

get all the mums to collect empty egg boxes loo rolls cereal boxes plastic milk bottles & lids and make junk robots or sculptures - if you have room to store them till next week to dry you could then paint/glitter them

[Countingthegreyhairs]

Decorating crowns - children glue sweet papers, rolled up bits of tissue paper, bottle tops, stickers etc to a 2-inch wide piece of card board that have already been cut out (you could write their names on the crowns too if you want). You then staple them to fit each child's head.

Draw an outline of a sheep in thick black pen x 12. Get the children to stick white cotton wool balls on to drawing.

Cut out 24 fish shapes out of bubble wrap (small bubbles). Cellotape in pairs (leaving a hole at tail end) making 12 fish shaped "pockets". Assemble an assortiment of different coloured strips of tissue paper, or coloured paper from magazines and ask the children to stuff the fish pockets with the paper (making coloured stripes). Add a black 'eye' to each fish. Cellotape up the holes and then the fish can be hung up with black thread.

Mix various coloured paints in saucers. Get the children to paint thickly on white cardboard. Get some shrink wrap and lay it over the paint and pull it off again to make interesting designs.

Mix various coloured paints in saucers using lots of water to dilute. Give each child a paper plate and a straw. Ask the children to "blow" the paint around the plates.

Make faces out of paper plates using different coloured bits of wool, and eyes, noses and mouths cut out of magazines (or just get children to paint the features on.

Will think of more soon ...

[Countingthegreyhairs]

Btw - the cling film one might be a bit too old for that age group - but if you do it, you have to let the children "squidge" the paint under the cling film (the paint has to be watery) and then let it dry (on radiator good) with cling film still attached before peeling cling film off to reveal interesting patterns and colours etc.

Another good one is to get a role of old wall paper and use the back. Get one child to lie down and keep still (!!) and then let the other children draw around the child. Then let the other children draw or paint in the features and clothes etc.

A variation of this would be to ask children to draw/trace around their hands and feet on brown paper bags and then cut out. Or draw around hands and cellotape two sides and make "puppets" with faces.

Threading book-marks: cut 12 pieces of sturdy cardboard (from cereal packet)and punch holes in all around. Ask the children to thread stiff-ish string (or shoe laces good because of stiff end) through the holes (again may be for slightly older group).

Get clean yoghurt pots and punch a hole in the end of each. The children then decorate the yoghurt pots how they like - with stickers etc. Ask the children to thread a knotted piece of thick-ish string through the hole. Tie a big bead to the bottom of each piece of string. Then ask the children to "catch" the bead in the pot. This works with children 2 years and up.

Hand tulips are good for spring. Either do them individually or on the back of a long piece of wallpaper. Get the children to paint one palm with bright red paint. The hand prints become the tulip flowers. Then either stick on green string, or use paint to create stems and either green paint or cardboard shapes for leaves.

Food mosaics. Use icing for glue. Use cereals, crackers, dried fruit, minestrone, alphabet spaghetti etc. to make mosaics on paper plates. Paint with the icing!! Use can use different colors of icing if you like.

Another messy idea (but has to be well supervised) is to let children play with some sort of foam (hypoallergenic shaving foam a possibility but probably some other bubbly foam from shampoo that doesn't hurt eyes best). Free play with paper cups, plastic blunt knives, plates and sponges - they love it!!

Tie dye butterflies are good using runny paint or washable felt tips. You just cut 12 butterfly shapes out of coffee filters. Let the children colour them in, add water with paint brushes, and watch the colours bleed together.

A variation on this is "ink blots" using washable paint instead of ink. Just get twelve pieces of good quality thin white card and fold in half (with a crisp fold). Ask the children to paint on just one side of the paper with strong but fairly wet washable paint. Then ask them to press both sides together. They love opening them up to "reveal" the pattern.

Pringle shake: take a clean, empty Pringle's can and put inside a sheet of white paper. Soak several marbles or 3 cm pieces of sponge in several colors of paint. Put the lid on and let the children shake.

[BroccoliSpears]

Counting that's fantastic! Thank you so much for taking the time to put those down. Really appreciate it.

I'm going to be the best reluctant half-hearted craft table supervisor our Tots' Group has ever had!

[Countingthegreyhairs]

No problem! For my sins (which are many ) I volunteer at dd's school to help with all things craft-related. Still racking my brains for you because I tend to do stuff for the 4-5 yr age range and above nowadays... but will post again if think of any more ...

[jenkel]

String and pasta tubes for threading

[BroccoliSpears]

I volunteered again this week and have come scuttling back to this thread and pinched a lot more ideas.

I heart this thread and everyone who posted their great ideas.