Crafts for Toddlers

FamilyFun.com Is and excellent website and magazine for ideas such as this. Also just do a search for it on web. Good luck!

1 mom found this helpful

HAHA, it's already been said TWICE, but i love love love familyfun.com it's great for everything from craft, decorations, costumes for halloween, recipes, and just about everything, their cooking with kids section is great too. i do all sorts of these projects with my kids and the 2 year old i babysit for.

I am a day care owner and our 2 year olds love this. We use clear contact paper for this. Cut a large piece; peel off the backing; tape it sticky side up onto a table that your toddler can sit at. Give them small pieces of colored paper, feathers, sequins, yarn, pictures from magazines, etc. What ever they pick up will stick to the contact paper. It is fun to watch them make different things. When they have finished, take another piece of contact paper and put it over this. You can also cover it with colored construction paper. Punch 2 holes in the top of their artwork, and string yarn through it. They will be so proud of their work. They can hang this on the fridge, or from the window. It is a neat gift to give to Grandma and Grandpa!

My experience with crafts and two year olds is they have a very different idea of what is a "craft". Give a two year old a piece of construction paper, a bottle of Elmer's Glue and a pile of cotton balls or tissue paper squares and she'll be in heaven. And you'll have beautiful art for your refrigerator, as long as you're into Picasso :)

hi, this is a sight that my sister told me about. i havent had time to check it out, but if she likes it, it is probably pretty good. hope it helps. kaboose.com

If you're looking to do something that she can "give away" when she's finished, I have created KidCards Greeting Card Books (www.kidcards.org). The pages pull out and fold to turn into greeting cards... but the messages are already there for her... she just has to color & decorate it. All pages are cardstock and will stand up to paint and markers. I came up with the idea when I was trying to make homemade cards with my little ones.

I have so many ideas for you, we enjoyed these crafts last year when my daughter was two

Bingo markers- let you child make dots on paper and later let her trace the first letter of her name in dots

cheerio bracelet, let your child thread cheerios on a pipe cleaner. The pipe cleaner is stiffer than yarn ( necklace) and this is a great exercise for fine motor skills.

Cut out a gold fish bowl shape and let your child glue goldfish crackers on the paper, I do the same and cut out a big pot or bowl shape and let my daughter glue dry ABC pasta.

Rigatoni necklace- thread dry pasta on yarn

stickers- buy some stickers and let her stick them on paper

water color paints, pudding paint

L.,

Kaboose.com has some fun ones, too.

J.

The magazine Oreintal trading has great arts and crafts. My children love to do there crafts. Good luck with that.

I like dltk-bible.com. It has fun craft ideas, not just biblical. Playhouse Disney has a cute website as well.

Another idea for some "learning crafts" and other activities that aren't specifically crafts but are still fun...go to www.paltoys.com - they have decks of activity cards that you can order for a specific age. They also have a link that shows what stores near you would carry these cards if you don't want to order them over the internet.

This may be a tad too old for your little one, but it's a great resource for when she's close to three. And most of the activities require very little preparation. The title is: Kitchen Table Play & Learn, activities and lessons for building your preschooler's vital developmental skills by Tara Copley & Andrea Custer. Good luck!

I have found some cute ones on this site:
http://www.preschoolexpress.com/art_station.shtml
Good luck! My son turned 2 in May and he has really been into crafts this summer and fall. Today we painted some mini pumpkins. I think it is great to get their creative minds going, even if they are messy and their artwork isn't beautiful at first!

I sell Usborne Books. They are set for children birth until teenage years. We sell a variety of art books for all ages.

We have sticker books, we sell kid kids (come with a books and color or other activity related to the book).We sell books for hunting and finding pictures on a page.

1) Book: Big Book of Playtime Activities- it is a combined volume of ( "I Can Crayon", "I Can Cut and Stick", "I Can Draw Animals", " and "I Can Draw People". These books are also sold individually.

2) Sticker Books
3)Mazes, Dot-to-Dot, Find Pictures
4)Jigsaw Puzzle Books
5)Stencil Books
6)Cook with your youngster books or flashcard recipes
7) Various Hobby books
8) Book: 365 things to make and do , Origami, Cowboys, Princesses, Fairies, Face Painting, Knights and Castles, Monster activities, Pirates, Papercrafts, Vacation activities, Wizards, Animals, Dinosaurs, Trucks
9) Activity books for Easter, Christmas, Halloween, Summertime, Mother's Day
10)Art Drawing, ideas, projects, skills books
11) Activity cards for Rainy Days, Travel Games,Things to Draw and paint, 50 Things to Draw and Paint, 50 Things to make and do, 50 Science Things to Make and do, 50 Brain Activities, 100 Things for little children to do on a trip (write on with a wipe off pen included). Then they can do the activities on both sides of the card more than once.

Check Out my website: We have quite a variety of books, activities, books with CD's, Internet Linked and Internet Referenced books. Etc.

ubah.com/T2267
J. R.
Educational Consultant

Email me back with questions.

Hello!

I would try stamping with her. I scrapbook and my now 3 year old was fascinated when I pulled out my stamps. She now has her own bin of stamps and loves it. You can go to Pat Catan's, Michael's, etc. and get a few colors of ink pads and a bunch of stamps very inexpensivley. This way she can make her own cards for birthdays and such and pictures for your fridge. It is a great way to bond and create!

I see you are asking for craft ideas. However, at this age, most of the art activity should be open-ended without a particular result. Give your child fingerpaint (even if she is still a little mouthy, the paint is non-toxic (or make your own) and hopefully doesn't taste good enough to really eat it. Homemade playdough is great for squishing, cutting with butter knives, cookie cutters, forks, spoons, slotted spoons, etc. Spaghetti art using overcooked spaghetti--see internet for ideas, use pudding or yogurt to fingerpaint on cookie sheets. Try peanut-butter playdough--yummy to eat while playing.

Crafts are ok in small amounts, as long as you don't require their finished product to look like yours. You could decorate a picture frame with sponge paints, decorate rocks after a walk in the woods to collect them, toddlers love stickers. Hope this helps. BTW, FamilyFun.com has some nice ideas sorted by age, but many of them are not open-ended.

Play-activities.com also has some good ideas that come in a weekely e-mail newsletter.

Oriental trading company has a lot of cute craft ideas and kits. The age limits range, but it's a start. www.orientaltradingcompany.com

Hi L.,
I have a two year old daughter, also 2 older girls and we go to crayola.com, nickjr.com, about.com (search for toddler crafts), parenting.com, oh heck you can even search on google for craft ideas. We also go to scholastic.com and search for toddler ideas and stuff...I have a crap load of ideas from those websites. Sometimes marthastewart.com has really good ones as well. I also have other websites as well...but I'd have to look them up. They even have game ideas and activities to do with your toddlers for every season...its awesome! Good Luck & Have Fun!

familyfun.com is a good website
brownielocks is also good for toddler activities

We do a lot of finger painting, coloring, play-doh, use pipe cleaners, popcicle sticks, cotton balls, paper lunch sacks, glue, crayons, markers, construction paper, etc. I haven't ever used a book or anything for craft ideas, I just let my child use their imagination and see what she comes up with.

Try this one:
http://stepbystepcc.com/themes.html

Check out Family Fun magazine, or their web site www.familyfun.com. They have lots of great ideas!

Crayola.com and pbs.org lots of stuff on both

If she has a favorite character I would check that company's website! I know disney and nickjr and noggin.com all have great ideas. On noggin you can search by age! You might also try parents.com I use alot of the ideas from playhouse disney and nick jr. You could also make vanilla pudding and put food coloring in it! Let her paint-kids of a variety of ages love this!

Its been my experience that crafts don't really work with a 2 year old. Heck, even my almost-4 year old has such a short attention span sometimes, it is frustrating to try and even sit down and paint a picture. It really varies day to day. You can try and play with PlayDoh but don't expect much more than that!

L.