Baby Crafts

anything that starts with a handprint LOL. DD's preschool had the kids do handprints and footprints on an adult size t-shirt with fabric paint - you could also do the handprints on aprons or tote bags - lots of possibilities at craft stores like JoAnn or Michael's. If there's a paint-your-own pottery place you could have the child put a handprint on a plate or tile and then you could add the child's name and age and have it glazed and fired. Or google something like "child's handprint art" for other ideas. DD2's kindy teacher had the class do several handprints that were made into different seasonal pictures and put one for each month on a blank calendar (so you have a handprint turkey in November, a handprint leprechaun in March, handprint snowman in January, etc. - she even had little poems for each month that you could probably find online also.

take the handprint art one step further, ask a local carpet company for samples and paint the baby's feet white and have him make "ghosts" on the carpet adn write boo or something adn make a halloween welcome mat. the toes are teh bottom of the ghost's sheet and the heel is where you would add black eyes.

Fun for this age is taking contact paper and letting him stick tissue paper or something like that to the construction paper, if you use flat pieces place another piece of contact paper on top and cut out a cute shape.

give them playdough and let them poke safe objects in it, my kids loved uncooked spaghetti noodles some times it looked like a porcupine.

photo art is good too, have the baby finger paint with non toxic paints and use that as a matt for a picture of him.

The little one I watch is 2.5 now but when she was that age I started getting what I call foamies. Foam art shapes you can get any kind of paper to stick them to. I was just at Target and they had some Halloween ones in the dollar bin. She goes crazy now with her Foamies! Keeps her busy. She has learned letters, colors, shapes, animals etc with them. Oh and how to peel & stick! :)

Bingo markers are lots of fun! Discount school supplies has great sales throughout the year on these and other great supplies. Also printing with paint is fun with this age group. You can cut an apple in half, sick a fork in the part eith the skin for a handle, dip it it paint and let them have fun. You can also cut s potato in half and add a shape for prints. Also things like bottle brushes, sponges on sticks or even small body poofs or loofahs make great prints. You can take a car with big treads on the wheels and drive it through paint. My daughters favorites were anything with stickers and finger painting with pudding! Have fun and let me know if you need more ideas.

At the library, another mom was checking out a book called "The Golden Book of Family Fun". I briefly looked thru it and added it to my wait list. It looks so cool, with all kinds of game ideas, homemade recipes (most of which I already have, but its nice to have all in this book), craft ideas, etc. Also, our library in Moon has craft days (Mondays from 10am-3pm and others) for all ages. Your local library may have the same thing - you can go and use their supplies, or get ideas for stuff at home. Good luck!

My kids fave craft is painting pasta. I would get pasta in fun shapes, but really anything works. Glue it to a piece of paper, then let them paint the pasta pieces. DD started this at about 2ys, but I'm sure she could have done it sooner. Crafts for that age are tricky because there isn't much they can do without the adult doing everything. :)

ETA: I checked out a couple kids craft books from the library, the old school ones my mom had and found some good ideas in there.

I have a great one that is so easy. Get a t-shirt in her size, and using non-toxic colored paint, put the boy's hand and feet prints on it. I saw one mom with one where the child's name and birth day was also on it. You can also trace his hands and feet onto colored paper or use a fancy wallpaper and cut them out, put them on a nice background with his name on it and frame it for her. There is still the standby hand(s) or hand(s) and feet in a plaster of paris mold, spray paint a pretty color or gold, and put a nice ribbon for hanging (don't forget to punch the hole before it sets!) You can let the baby go wild with a paint brush on paper. Take a picture of the baby, increase it in size to at least 8 1/2 x 11, paste to a cardboard background, cut into puzzle pieces and mail it to her from him. Just a few...let me know what you think!