Thanks for all of the great ideas!!!
I did a toddler craft based on trains (we sang Down at The Station and read a couple of the best train books, pretended to be choo trains to train music). The craft was two rectangles one made of black construction paper and one made of brown construction paper. We gave out lots of colorful circles and long strips (about 1 inch wide) of black paper and gave out string. The children glued the circles to the black paper to make wheels and decorated the train with markers. They glued the long strips of black paper on the brown rectangle to make tracks. Then we punched holes in the brown paper and black paper and strung them together as a mobile. So basically you had an engine and train tracks as a mobile. It was really fun!
Seriously, though, any sort of creative activity you can think of that is very simple, easy, and fun with little or no prep time is the best for toddlers. Such as --- Glue sticks and construction paper shapes to glue on a piece of paper --- add markers or crayons Water colors --- even though they may not get the idea of water, paint, paper sequentially --- most of them love to find out if they can make color come out of the brush... Any sort of collage materials that are big enough not to choke and can be stuck down with a glue stick -- I don't use liquid glue with this age.... Colored glue sticks are fun and they can see the glue... add glitter for a nice touch.... the glitter nowadays is safe for young children since it's made out of plastic, not metal.... Dot markers are also a big hit... you can find them in school catalogues.... the bingo daubers usually aren't safe for young children and may be toxic.... Stamping is fun.... a bit messy..... finger painting is fun..... a bit messy...... play dough (you can make your own)
I'd say try it; it should be very successful. It would be around here. Preschool for threes in our area is only two days per week and for twos is non-existant, so parents are often looking for programs for their young ones. The crafts we do at storytime are often the highlight of the occasion. If you haven't been doing crafts with this age group you might be surprised at how capable they are. Contrary to popular opinion, they are have a very good pincer grasp and are surprisingly adept at small pieces, even sequins and beads.
Precut EVERYTHING in advance. Make it as easy as possible and portable if they don't want to take the tie to finish the craft.
I used one story and then the craft BUT the children were older 5-7--even then there were concerns.
Keep telling yourself: It's the process NOT the final product that's important. Some children just don't have the small motor skills.
I do crafts with my toddlers (24-35 mo.) every week. The trick is to do simple things like paper bag puppets or color and glue pictures. Basically, anything you can make using crayons, glue sticks and pre-cut construction paper or foam pieces. AND parental participation. The parents have to help. This age group can't do it alone. It's really a lot of fun. Good luck!
We try to tie something that goes with the story and is developmentally appropriate. One week we cut out sandpaper S and they glued them on paper with a die cut snowman. Gluing and coloring are usually the tasks.
I have done crafts with the little ones, but I have also been told that I'm a bit off my rocker for doing so! They love being able to get all messy and the parents really appreciate that we do it so they don't have to. I have let them finger paint with pudding (in case they eat it), make stick puppets with popsicle sticks and Ellison cut outs, do coloring pages where they color things and then put shape stickers on (we did a soup bowl that they colored and then they used alphabet stickers to make it look like alphabet soup), paper bag puppets and simple things like that. Good luck!
Try a "Clay Time" program. Buy self-hardening clay and a few simple tools like a clay cutters, wax paper and corrogated cardboard squares for a surface and you have a process driven program. I picked up a few tips from a librarian who works for my system as well as an excellent video, Fun With Clay. Here's the MARC record for the VHS -
738.14$bF979
245 10 Fun with clay$h[Videorecording]
260 Redondo Beach, CA :$bMorris Video,$c[c1986]
300 1 videocassette (VHS) (30 min) :$bsd., col. ;$c1/2 in
440 0 Crafts
500 Program notes on container
500 VHS format
500 Morris Video 401
520 Julie Abowitt teaches the three basic methods of working with cla
y (pinch, coil, and slab) to your children to create beads, block
s, tiles, pots, flat designs and anything else they can imagine 650 0 Clay 650 0 Handicrafts 650 0 Pottery crafts 650 0 Ceramics
I do a small "craft" at the end of my toddler storytimes. I've found that anything with glue (glue stix are best), markers or stickers is always a hit.
Hi, We have been doing this for a number of years. Our program is called "Messy Monday"
and we do a lot of simple crafts like finger painting, shaving cream paint, sidewalk chalk, and other very open ended crafts. We often read a story or two and will do bubbles with them as well. It is very popular and the parents are very appreciative.
We do lots of very simple crafts with our 2-3 year old kids. Paper bag puppets are a hit. They aren't good at cutting so we have all the parts cut out and then let the kids go crazy with glue sticks and crayons. We have also done some stamping with our little ones. We get big foam stamps and let them play. They also seem to be crazy about home made play dough. They are good at smashing it and rolling it.