Favorite Web Sites for Kid's Holiday Arts & Crafts Review

www.enchantedlearning.com,www.first-school.ws,www.perpetualpreschool.com

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awlafon
Big Island, VA

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Your HOLIDAY CRAFTS research has been done for you.

Crafter, making learning fun, a holiday nut

Pros

free, lots of usable ideas, fun for family time

Cons

need to know how to navigate sites

FEB

2008

As a preschool parent and home-schooling Mom, I am always on the look out for fun arts and crafts activities that compliment our learning. I am also a holiday nut. I love to decorate and celebrate!

Whether you’re a parent, grandparent or teacher, if you’re looking fun arts and crafts activity ideas at your fingertips, I’ve done some research for you.

Here are three web sites I use regularly to find holiday or theme related arts and crafts projects.

www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/

Enchanted Learning has been around for many years. I can’t tell you how many times I‘ve seen a neat teaching idea and was told “I got this idea from the enchanted learning web site.”

Enchanted Learning offers lots of good lesson plans ideas but the holiday crafts are really great. The instructions are easy to follow and they mostly use supplies you will have on hand. Clicking on St. Patrick’s Day, I accessed 8 fun and easy crafts like a blarney stone, paper bag potato face and rainbow streamer. The instructions are easy to follow and mostly use supplies you will have on hand. In some cases, just the photo will give you a quick idea like a handprint rainbow.

Enchanted Learning began offering memberships for $20.00 for unlimited access without ads and including pintables. Never fear, there is still a lot of great free information available on the Enchanted Learning web site. I know many teachers and parents who have joined and are pleased with their member benefits. Because I am not a big work sheet user, I simply go for the free ideas.

www.first-school.ws/theme/holidays.htm

The First School web site also has fun arts and crafts activities for holidays. These are easy to use ideas like making a Humpty Dumpty finger puppet for Easter or a Thanksgiving Turkey with maple leave feathers.

First School also has free printables for everything! They have coloring, writing, activity and craft template pages printable in color or black and white. What I like are the printable finger puppets! There are many craft template pages that are great for people who want to do arts and crafts activities but are artistically challenged.

I really like the simple teaching instructions they share for introducing concepts and making connections. Here’s a St. Patrick’s Day example:

“Ages 2 to 6: * Discuss the color green and what it means to the Irish people. It is connected to hope and nature.* Where is the color green in nature? Plants, trees and animals, like a grasshopper. * When talking about plants you can introduce the shamrock.” This is followed with arts and crafts activities for shamrocks.

www.perpetualpreschool.com

The Perpetual Preschool web site has over 200 everyday themes. They also have a holiday themes sections with the holidays in alphabetical order. They offer not just art ideas but also games, songs and snacks for every holiday.

The Perpetual Preschool has a lot of ads that can be distracting but if you can remember the site is free and keep your focus, they have a lot of great holiday arts and crafts ideas.

This site isn’t fancy and there won’t be pictures. You’ll have to scroll down through a category to read each idea. However, each submission is short and it is pretty easy to scan through and it never takes long to find a winning usable idea.

I loved this idea submitted by Meagan for St. Patrick’s Day- tape three cans together in a triangle to dip in green paint to create a Shamrock print! I love it.

Perpetual Preschool also has “Centers” sections that I like to check out occasionally with cool ideas for enhancing learning centers. I once found a fun idea for making big, soft blocks by stuffing brown paper bags. The “Centers” section is worthwhile for preschool teachers or parents to check out.

Each of these sights offers fun inspiration for holiday crafts. I also enjoyed checking out these two sites, DLTK and All Free Crafts and I love to use Family Fun Magazine for holiday craft ideas too.

My View Point:

www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts

Enchanted Learning is the quickest way to get holiday crafts ideas with good instructions and pictures.

www.first-school.ws/theme/holidays.htm

First School is the place to go if you want printables to get you started or are more interested in tips on the teaching connection to your arts and crafts.

www.perpetualpreschool.com

Perpetual Preschool offers unique and very worthy ideas but is best used when you have time to scroll around and hunt.

Don’t forget that your local library is also a great source for holiday arts and crafts books and of course story books to read along with your fun activities. I could never have too many holiday arts and crafts ideas. I’d love to hear about your favorite sources. Happy crafting!