Toddler group craft table - any ideas?

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Hello. Can anyone share their favourite tried and tested ideas for a toddler group craft table? Recently we've made paper plate monsters, shakers, valentines garlands, spiral snakes, collage owls and mothers day cards of course! Would love some new ideas, spring themed or otherwise.

We made some lovely colourful Jellyfish last week.

A card piece for the body, that the children can draw on / stick eyes on etc, then long strips of coloured tissue paper stuck onto the card. We also used a hole punch at the top so thread string through.

decorating fairy cakes - different coloured icing, various sprinkles, mini smarties etc.

handprint parrots.

at our nursery we are not allowed to do those activities where every child's artwork ends up looking the same. Too much adult involvement is not good.

We have a trolley of collage stuff that the children can use to make their own creations with the adult giving support and not too much adult direction.

handprint ideas here

Also butterflies - cut out butterfly shapes on coloured paper or thin card and decorate one half with glitter glues or paint, fold in half to duplicate. Or just paint/colour in/ stick glitter or stickers on.

Planting sunflowers?

One of the lovliest ideas we ever did was clean jam jars with a piece of string or ribbon around the top.

Leave the children to go wild with pva glue and torn scraps of colourful tissue paper. Leave to dry and pop a tea light inside.

Your child has made a beautiful 'stained glass' tea light holder that is actually nice to look at and useful!

I did some daffodil cards this week - the little uns 18-23 months enjoyed splodging around with orange paint getting some on the egg box daffodil trumpet. I then made yellow petals and stuck them around the egg box bit. Looked good and the kids all got to do their own thing with the orange paint. Kids then scribbled their own messages inside and scribbled on green stalks.

Another good one for younger children:

Draw one large stick figure per piece of A4 paper. Cut out various shapes from different coloured paper. Let the3 children 'dress' their person with shapes. I was impressed by how imaginative they were, making beards, bows in their hair, eyes, ties, shoes etc.

Or draw a sheep outline and let them stick cotton wool on it.

Wow - thanks everyone. Just popped upstairs to change a nappy and came back to all these ideas.

purepurple - I know what you mean. I used to work in a nursery and we really focussed on the process rather than the product too. I think there is a place for both approaches and I'm really enjoying doing this too.

painting and threading pasta, ds1 (2yr9mo) did it other week and still loves putting his 'necklace' on, also made a hat, visor, which he stuck tisue paper and shiney things too, he loves wearing that too... he basically loves dressing up

some great ideas on here btw

Have you tried ripping small pieces of cheap (it has ot be cheap) coloured tissue paper and 'gluing' them to white paper with water? The colour runs out of the tissue and leaves lovely pastelly patterns.
Or cook some pasta (cheapo spaghetti is good) in food colouring, drain it but leave it damp and let them stick it to paper. Bonus is that it is edible so doesn't matter if they eat it1

Make a large batch of playdough and leave them to it.

Jackbauer - I am amazed that in between saving the world time and time again you do craft with toddlers. Your ideas are, of course, great. Please come to my toddler group!

Insywinsyspider - I did wonder about necklaces. I was a bit worried the little ones might strangle themselves/ each other with their creations but I am prob being way too paranoid. Your ds sounds lovely. My ds1 longs to wear plastic bags on his head. We keep trying to make crowns etc but nothing is as tempting to him as a bag.

Soupdragon - will definitly do playdough thing.

Just reread my last message and thought I should say I don't actually let my son wear plastic bags on his head - he just wants to!

Back to the craft stuff. Saw a nice idea for later in the summer on 'MisterMaker'. How to make a model sandcastle. Cut turrets in a cardboard tube, (adult), paint glue all over tube and roll in play sand, add a flag.

My favourite craft for all ages it a sun catcher. Cut the centre out of some card or paper plate. Cover hole with contact (this saves on glue mess) decorate the contact with different coloured/sized see through paper. Looks great on the windows and puts rainbows on the floors and walls

dee4 That's a good one. We'll do that in the week.
For sun catchers, we have cut a rectangle of contact paper, let ds put a blob of play dough on one half, folded contact paper and let him squish it, but your way sounds better and a bit more fun.

Coming up next month we do St. Patrick's day prints. You cut green peppers into horizontal slices, dip them in green paint, and press on white paper. You can shake gold glitter on top while the paint's wet; it turns out nicely. They don't look exactly like shamrocks of course, but the general idea's there and the kids have fun with it!

Since spring and the rainy season are coming up too we've done contact paper raindrop shapes with blue tissue paper stuck on them.

we've done balloon people - get a load of balloons, get the littles to colour in 'shoes' which you punch a small hole in and thread the knot of the balloon through (iyswim) and they stick on eyes, nose, ears, bits of wool or hat etc on, any of these can be drawn on cheap white address labels so no glue everywhere. Impressively mess-free and loads of fun as they all come out very different. Make sure their names go on the bottom of the feet tho - or on a sticker on the back

i second the comment about not too much focus on end product. When it was my turn to do, i used to make brightly coloured playdough and take in cutters and rolling pins etc or just cut up squares and triangles of sugar paper (the craft paper that elc do) and give each child a sheet to stick on how they liked. The end result was always nice. If you want it to look "nice" then focus on giving them attractive raw materials but don't give a model as such. I used to just make a few ramdom pictures to chow the adults that there wasn't a fixed outcome! sorry just saw soupdragon's playdough suggestion. If you want a recipe:
1 cup plain flour, 1/2 cup salt, 2tbsp cream of tartar, 2tbsp oil, 1 cup water (1 cup = 250 ml), food colour if you like, add to water. Mix ingredients in pan, stir over med heat til comes together, allow to cool slightly then knead til smooth.

This is a good website for ideas...

The toddler group that we go to links the craft activity into the weekly (Bible) story.

AT the local museum DD recently made a 'crown' with a tiger picture on it for Chinese New Year, she has barely taken it off since

I'm thinking of doing the same thing with bunny ears for Easter, though I'm not sure where to get card that's long enough to go round their heads.

OK, just realised this is really old thread, but nice ideas anyway so not worried about bumping it.

wands - made with straws, coloured card, sequins and ribbons, make any designs, we did a star, heart, a little girl and something else cant remember - but it was more me than dd!