Help! have to think up craft ideas for toddler group

[lucysnowe]

I've been tasked :) with putting together a craft for toddler group next week. I am moderately crafty but not creative at all. I need to find something to do that

• suits 18 month-3.5 year olds
• is maybe a bit seasonal (autumnal??)
• can be done fairly quickly
• is fairly unmessy
• is fairly cheap to organise

Can you lovely creative ladies help? Or point me to a website where I can do my own research??

Have you7 tried looking at ichild or toddler toddler.
Hold on, I'll get links

Just thinking of things DS has done recently:

Print out leaf shapes for kids to colour in or stick things onto

Make a kite - diamond shaped piece of paper to be coloured in, piece of string attached with coloured tissue paper attached to it

We also made snakes - circle of paper or coloured card cut into a spiral and then decorated with colour pens / glitter and then string attached to the top to hand it - I still have these in my kitchen!

Oh thanks, quick responses! I like the leaf idea!

Also: is there a website I can get craft stuff cheaply? Which one do you all use??

you could make some play dough - it is pretty easy. Or make a leaf picture, go out, gather some leaves and glue the different colours and shapes onto a piece of paper.

Make their own trees? gather some leaves from outside and twigs and they can glue the twigs as the trunk and leaves as the...leaves! Or paint the trunk as sticking on twigs can be a bit fiddly/fall off.

Icing Digestive biscuits - buy biccys, make up icing in different colours (could make it tree or autumn themed with green icing and brown chocolate sprinkles?), or buy the writing icing and then use that to draw autumn things on the top (would need adult help to use the pens though I'd think).

Or make a tree pic with their handprints in green paint as the tree leaves and maybe sticking brown lollysticks or pipecleaners or just coloured paper cut into strips for the trunk. Get some feathers (and maybe those stick on googly eyes) and they can plonk some 'birds' in the branches or at the bottom.

Or roughly cut out pictures/random rough shapes from a gardening mag or print off some pictures of leaves or something or just green paper and brown paper, and do sticking. Add other things to put in the trees like feathers again, bits of cut up wool or buttons for a nest.

Type crafts for children into Google there are lots of websites out there.

Finger puppets out of a cone of paper.

Crepe paper streamers in rainbow colours stick/staple to a twig or around the edge of a paper plate

Make a rainbow out of handprints/footprints.

Ladybird out of egg box

fold a piece of paper in half and make a butterfly/dragonfly/bumble bee

pine cone hedgehog

pine cone bumble bees using felting wool.

pine cone bird feeder

tear up tissue paper, roll into balls and use to make a collage

snowman out of loo roll and cotton wool

Christmas tree out of loo roll and green card and decorate with tissue paper balls

halloween lanterns black sheet of card backed with orange tissue paper and make a face out of black card

I do the crafts for my local playgroup too - same age group, started a few weeks ago. My budget is £4 per week for 25 kids. So far I've done, turtles made from paper bowls, stick on paper heads and legs, decorate bowl (shell) with cut up paper,
caterpillars made from circles of coloured paper,
decorated gingerbread men (Sainsburys do 30 mini ones for £2.50),
cheerio necklaces on strawberry laces, crowns made from circles of card with feathers stuck on,
boat collage, cut out sails and hull and lolly stick for mask,
colouring in masks - printed out from Crayola website and stuck on card
fish with coloured paper scales and tissue paper tails.

Mainly buy supplies at The Works - v good value and good quality.

Am also planning to do:

necklaces from cut up straws and string
lion/tiger faces with tissue paper stuck onto paper plates
Autumn trees with cut out trunks and then stick on leaves (have leaf punch)
Decorating fairy cakes
Sowing cress in yogurt pots (waiting for Wilkinsons to get cheap cress seeds back in!)

Interested to hear other people's ideas as always need new ones!

Thankyou, these are really good! I think I am going to go with leaves at first and try something more ambitious next time...