Are Crafts Beneficial/Important?

[permanentvacation]

Yes, the expected outcome of a hand print snowman is this perfect outline of a hand with the eyes, nose, mouth, and buttons placed just so. But, if you truly let the child do the work, it won't be perfect. If you have the child place one hand on a piece of paper and use his other hand to do his best to trace his hand, then in his mind, he's thinking, "go slow, go up, around the thumb and down the other side, and up around the finger, and oops, I dropped the pencil, pick the pencil up, fix my fingers to hold it right, line up my other hand with the space that I already traced my thumb and one finger, okay, keep my hand still on the paper, now go up the other finger..." A child doesn't usually have to think in those ways while playing. It makes them use their brain differently. Then, they have to look at the hand print and decipher just where the eyes, nose, and mouth would go. So they have to be able to compare the hand print to a person's face and use spatial recognition to figure out the correct location of the eyes, nose, and mouth.

Doing crafts really takes a lot of thinking that us adults don't acknowledge and take for granted because most of the requirements are second nature to us. We know that you glue wiggle eyes towards the top of a paper bag and put them across from each other, we can, in seconds figure out where the eyes would go on a paper bag puppet, but for a little kids, it really makes them think and compare a person's face to an empty paper bag.

Now, if you are doing most of the work for the child or giving constant instructions of exactly where to put things on their creation, then, no, it's not helping the child as much as it should. Yes, it will teach the child to listen to instructions, but it's not teaching them to think, figure things out, and compare their blank item to something in the real world that they are trying to create a copy of. It's better if you guide the child by saying, 'Where should the eyes go? Look at my face, or your friend's face and see where our eyes are and then look at your snowman. Where do you think the snowman's eyes should be? That would help the child think and learn rather than you saying 'put the eyes here'.

As far as doing arts and crafts with very young children infants - 2's, you will be introducing them to the idea of arts and crafts. You will be making their synapses grow and forming memories and learned behaviors that they can refer back to once they are more capable of actually doing the activity themselves. It's the same idea as talking with them. As infants, they don't understand that we are saying, ' come on, lets go bye, bye.' But the more you say it to them, and as they get older, the more they can comprehend, react, and eventually say on their own that they are going bye-bye. That's the same with anything you need to teach children. If you clean up the 6 month old's toys with him and tell him what you are doing, in a few months, he understands 'clean up' and is able to put toys away. That's the same with arts and crafts. You start working with them when they are young and really can't do arts and crafts by themselves, as they get older, they understand how to do the activity and use the tools they need to create their masterpiece on their own.

[Unregistered]

Play dough helps build the muscles in the hands for small motor skills like buttoning, Zipping, and writing, plus kids love it!

Creative art like painting is soothing, develops spatial awareness, can be a science lesson....red mixed with yellow makes orange, is a creative outlet, etc.

Will kids develop without creative art experiences? Sure, but they sure enjoy it!

Crafts are another story!

[Givingthemgrace]

We definitely do a lot of art and sensory play. I see crafts like Jenboo. Thank you for the replies though, I'll definitely have to remember to work on scissor skills. We cut pine needles off of branches today but that's different than cutting on a line!

[Play Care]

Are crafts beneficial/imporant?

In small doses, yes. Why? Because, like it or not, these are the parent pleasers. And they pay the bills

[DaveA]

Are crafts beneficial/imporant?

In small doses, yes. Why? Because, like it or not, these are the parent pleasers. And they pay the bills

Yep.

Are they beneficial? Maybe/ maybe not. But they can be fun, and if DCKs are having fun they aren't trying to color the ceiling. ::

[Blackcat31]

No, I don't think they are necessarily beneficial. I've never done crafts with kids of any kind until I once had a group of 5-year old girls that really wanted to create particular things, so we did a few crafts. I don't think it hurt them.

But, I DO think it's important to make sure that children can cut on a line and glue properly (not just put tons of glue all over) before they go to kindergarten.

Art and crafts are two totally different things in my book. You are describing art.
Crafts are cut out this circle and glue here. Color this part Orange etc.
Art has huge benefits. Crafts do not. Crafts are about the end product not the process.

I don't do crafts.

My parents do not expect crafts.

They know this coming in.

Art however is something at least one child is participating in here all day, other than at meal and nap times.

Supplies are out and available for the kids to use as they see fit.

[Lorna]

I think they are important. Help with fine motor skills. Learning to hold a crayon, use scissors and glue are all important. Not to mention to nurture the child's creativity. You can always see with kindergarten kids whose parents haven't encouraged crafts. Developmentally they are behind on using crayons, pencils, scissors. The drawings are scribbles and they haven't advanced to drawing.

[midaycare]

I think they are important. Help with fine motor skills. Learning to hold a crayon, use scissors and glue are all important. Not to mention to nurture the child's creativity. You can always see with kindergarten kids whose parents haven't encouraged crafts. Developmentally they are behind on using crayons, pencils, scissors. The drawings are scribbles and they haven't advanced to drawing.

I agree. We were told at Kindergarten orientation for our DS last year that kindergarten is now what first grade used to be. Kids need to go to kindergarten already knowing how to cut straight, paste, draw simple shapes, etc.

If kids don't know these things, teachers will be teaching the kids this stuff instead of how to read and add and subtract. So I dunno ... I'd rather teach this stuff to the young ones so the school teachers can concentrate on more important things. And I teach reading and math, too, but not like the teachers do.

I always have to keep in mind my area, too. I come from a very competitive school district and many people move here for the schools.

If we didn't have these schools, I would still do both art & crafts. Art is important for brain development and crafts bring joy to kids and parents. The look of their little faces when they make a craft is priceless! My DS is in first grade and he still feels this way. They make crafts all the time in school. Yet when I go into his school, he shows me his because his is "different" and "way cooler" than everyone else's.

[Play Care]

Yep.

Are they beneficial? Maybe/ maybe not. But they can be fun, and if DCKs are having fun they aren't trying to color the ceiling. ::

::

We do soooo much open ended art here. The kids love it, and I know they are benefitting from it. But these are also the things that wind up at the bottom of the bag and get tossed. the parent pleasers wind up on the fridge, go figure.

[jenboo]

I agree. We were told at Kindergarten orientation for our DS last year that kindergarten is now what first grade used to be. Kids need to go to kindergarten already knowing how to cut straight, paste, draw simple shapes, etc.

If kids don't know these things, teachers will be teaching the kids this stuff instead of how to read and add and subtract. So I dunno ... I'd rather teach this stuff to the young ones so the school teachers can concentrate on more important things. And I teach reading and math, too, but not like the teachers do.

I always have to keep in mind my area, too. I come from a very competitive school district and many people move here for the schools.

If we didn't have these schools, I would still do both art & crafts. Art is important for brain development and crafts bring joy to kids and parents. The look of their little faces when they make a craft is priceless! My DS is in first grade and he still feels this way. They make crafts all the time in school. Yet when I go into his school, he shows me his because his is "different" and "way cooler" than everyone else's.

I teach all of this without doing crafts. I don't think you need to do a craft to teach kids how to color or draw shapes or cut in a straight line. My twos love cutting with scissors. I give them paper with lines on it and they will cut on the lines. They love to color!! They are starting to recognize more shapes. They draw "circles" all the time. They also glue all the time as well. I will cut out people and animals from magazines and they will glue them to their papers.
My twos could care less about crafts. They don't care about what they are "making". They are proud of their paintings and drawings.

Now if we are taking school age, its a whole different story.

[craftymissbeth]

Contrary to my username I do not do crafts with my daycare kids. My kids are also 3 and under. I will rarely do a little something to send home for a holiday, but we do not regularly do crafts. Coloring is pretty much it for us. Every once in awhile we'll paint (if my group is small or I'm feeling particularly brave).

For my age group, while I do feel that working with different processes and art products IS beneficial... I feel that these things can be worked on at home. With my super young group, I am just not set up for crafts.

**my parents know this when they sign up**

[Wednesday!]

Crafts are FUN! Yes, they're beneficial! And the parents love getting their littles' projects when I send them home. They're very beneficial for fine motor skills, prewriting skills, learning colors and shapes and textures, learning about different artistic styles, etc, etc. I actually push the artistic/creative side in my kids because so much of it is being taken out of public schools.

[midaycare]

I'm kind of shocked at the number of people here who don't do crafts and/or art or rarely do art. I just thought it would be a natural part of everyone's program. I guess not!

[jenboo]

I'm kind of shocked at the number of people here who don't do crafts and/or art or rarely do art. I just thought it would be a natural part of everyone's program. I guess not!

from the sound of it, almost everyone has said that they do art. We do lots of art...gluing, cutting, painting, play doh, etc.
I just put materials out and the table and thats it.

It sounds like people are split on the crafts.

[deliberateliterate]

I'm just wondering, is it actually helping children to learn when you cut out shapes and tell them how to glue them? Maybe it's good to learn following directions and the kids I have are missing out.

I tend to shy away from those types of crafts because of the reasons you mentioned. I find that the kids enjoy, and get more out of craft time when I give them paper/crayons/paint/stickers/stamps, and let them create what they want.

I do some of the structured crafts because I think that's what the parents like best. I did one last week where all the kids did was allow me to paint their foot and press it on paper. I made it in to a snowman, added wording and decorations. The parents went ape s**t over it.

I guess some sort of happy medium where both parents and kids are happy is best.