Ideas for arts and crafts with a toddler ??

[mumtosp]

Hi all,

I've never been into arts and crafts so I have no idea where to begin..
DS is almost 18 mo - is that too early to start? If not, can you please recommend what we can do and also any books that would be helpful?
We cannot play with playdough as DS is very allergic to wheat...

TIA :)

Stickers. My chap LOVES stickers. Different shapes, textures etc.

crayola do really nice first pens which have a blunt nib so are easy for scribbling with.
He's just got painting but he's 2.5. It took a while for that.

The other thing we started at about 18 months was cooking. Either pressing the button on the food processor, or mixing the bowl of flour. Then rolling out and cutting biscuits.

Be prepared for some mess!"

18 month old DS loves crayons and pens, painting the fence or patio with a bucket of water and paintbrush. We're leaving paint until the summer so that we can take it outside!

My twins are 17 months and they like Playdoh, we do finger painting with Hartley's Jelly and water, Crayola my first crayons are good and easy for small hands to hold. I bought them My first colouring book off eBay which has large picture of animals with raised lines I colour the pictures and they scribble next to me

Melissa and Doug do a lovely re stick able stickers with background scenes
Melissa and Doug

Paint - big roll of paper outside, get some toys cars and put them in the paint then make patterns with wheels, just use hands, or shaped sponges are good for little ones to make patterns. Sticking they love too, cut pictures out of magazines, or cut up tissue paper - put some glue on the paper and let them stick away!

Try Nurturestore.co.uk and Imaginationtree.co.uk for ideas.

But try and keep it simple to start with. I try and do only one or two really messy things a week and the rest of the time I do easy to clean up stuff. Just because to start with they might only play with something for about 5 mins and it can be a bit soul destroying tidying up.

We have had big success with stuff set in jelly (we did aquatic creatures), making suncatchers with tissue paper and sticky back plastic. That one was good for a 2.5yr old and an 18month old. Just search suncatcher on either of the sites above. Things frozen in ice cubes and put in a tray with trucks and tractors or multi colored ice cubes made with food colouring. For our play tray we use an upturned lid of a plastic storage box.

Sorry I just realised they are not strictly arts and crafts but they are really good fun.

My 2.5 yr old has really only just started enjoying coloring and painting and other crafts so you will find that as they get older your ds will enjoy it more and you will work out what he likes doing .

It's also worth doing some prep without them there, the night before or during nap. Otherwise I would find he would start playing with whatever it was while I was setting up and then by the time I was ready to start he would be off doing something else.

Have you had a look on Pinterest? There are literally thousands of original ideas on there, I always find something x

You could make some salt dough using rice flour.

2 cups flour, 2 cups salt, 1 cup of water.

Sorry the imagination tree link was wrong try theimaginationtree.com

Second the idea of using toy cars (or other objects eg raw vegetables) to dip in paint and make prints. Some very artistic results. DD also looks crayons, although needs some persuading to stick to the paper . A quick and non-messy thing to do is use an aqua doodle playmat and pens (they're just filled with water and the mat becomes blank again when the water has dried).

Oh yes DD loved aqua doodle - she had a big mat which had bits around the outside but a big blank space in the middle. In the summer she would wet her feet and run across it making footsteps! She still plays with it now at four, practising her letters!

thanks all for the great ideas :)
Excited to try these!!!

My dd loved 'helping' with cooking from very small, sometimes this was just watching me chop things then picking up the chopped stuff to put in a pan/bowl. I natter to her about what and why etc.

Also a good way to get thru jobs without ignoring her or having to use precious nap time when I could be in front of telly

She is now 5 and really into helping properly and chatting about all aspects of food prep - textures, implements, shapes, recipes, etc. All great learning!

My DS will like to do coloring the images of animals, birds, cartoons and others images. and also he love to combine the images and stick those images. You can make you LO to color the images using crayons colors. I use to download images from online. I use download the images from this site. This site provides good images to color.

www.momjunction.com/articles/theme-based-ants-coloring-pages-toddler-will-love_0082246/

Me and my son have a made up game going at the moment where I get a bowel and a packet of pasta, then he scoops up a big handful and throws it towards the bowel. We then count how many pieces of pasta landed in it. I think it's fun because it allows him to be messy but also learn how to count and tidy up his bowel later.
I also love the idea of making play-doh, will try that at some point! x