Arts & Crafts

[PitterPatter]

I use to make arts and crafts on a daily basis until I was finding some parents didn't care to take them home, they 'forget' them here and when they do finally take them home, I find them the next day smashed and shoved down the side of the diaper bags. 1 DCM seems to like the crafts BUT she takes them from her child immediatley and says things like "oh no you aren't breaking that too we will put it up". Either way the kids don't get to handle the craft or art project or even see it after they leave daycare. I started keeping them here for a week at a time so they can be displayed and the kids can be proud but I just don't have the space for all of it. Then you have 1 child taking anothers project... It's just become an uneccessary issue. So I started having Arts & Craft time once a week. With Summer the kids were busy outside a lot anyway. We did more with exploring and collecting nature etc.

Now the cold rains are back this week and we have to do more inside. With Fall and Winter coming it makes me aware that we may need to bring Art & craft time back on a daily basis. So I was wondering what everyone else does here. Do you have a daily craft? If so what do you do with all the kids projects? Do the parents just push it aside or keep it from the kids? What's the norm here?

[mickey2]

Here we do arts and craft time everyday (except in the summer when we are out more)

I would not worry about what the parent does with it once they have seen it and they know that I make the effort and spend the time doing them with the children. The most important thing to me is I am doing these things with my kids and THEY have FUN!

[momma2girls]

We do a craft project once a month- I like you used to do them at least every week, but it just got way too much!! Not appreciated, etc..... We especially have fun doing the Holiday things, I might do a little bit more around the Holidays. I also do not start crafts til the children are 2 and over! I have learned this throughout the yrs. as well!!

[PitterPatter]

Here we do arts and craft time everyday (except in the summer when we are out more)

I would not worry about what the parent does with it once they have seen it and they know that I make the effort and spend the time doing them with the children. The most important thing to me is I am doing these things with my kids and THEY have FUN!

They do have fun and I am glad for that but then they have them ruined by DCM when she shoves them in crook of the diaper bag.

I'm just upset that the kids don't get to have them after they leave. Example We did a paper bag puppet of big bird and he had nice feathers and was 3-D. We also covered the Hungry Catapillar so we made an egg carton catterpillar another day. The kids took time painting then gluing on poms and other things. Both were smashed and broken in the side of the diaper bag. When the child pulls it out and sees it smashed what do you say? I told them before it's ok we will make another such and such.. but that doesn't always help. I don't really care what the parents think anymore because most dont appreciate anything anyway. I do for the kids. I just hate to see their heart broken by a lazy act of shoving their hard work in a side pouch. Maybe it's just me being irritable today.

Thanks for the advise.

[boysx5]

we do things three days a week it does upset me when I see the parents don't appreciate the time and money I put into it and I was going to stop but then I thought why punish the kids for the parents so I just went out and bought crafts to do with the kids and they enjoy so its all worth it

[momma2girls]

we do things three days a week it does upset me when I see the parents don't appreciate the time and money I put into it and I was going to stop but then I thought why punish the kids for the parents so I just went out and bought crafts to do with the kids and they enjoy so its all worth it

This is exactly why once a month is fine with me- too much time, and money wasted and very unappreciated. Doing it once a month and special things for Holidays, makes the parents appreciate it so much more!!

[godiva83]

I do crafts or try to do one everyday or mix it everyother day with a sensory project in-between.
Some creatives make it home, some get trashed before (kids are 1.5) but to me the process is the most important aspect of the creative not the finished product. It is through creative play that they get to use their imagination, problem solving skills, ingenuity, learn and explore so many things all at once.

I usually try to keep on craft a week per child to glue in their scrapbook that gets sent out at the end of the year. That way I know the children's artwork will be appreciated and parents will pick up on my cues and think that this is truly important.
However, you CAN'T keep e erything and children need to know that! Just show them the show 'Hoarders' and they will understand (joking)
Lol

[Abigail]

If you only offer art/crafts ONCE a week, what do you do the other 4 days of the week? Do you at least have open creative time when they can color and draw or use the little paints?

[DBug]

If you only offer art/crafts ONCE a week, what do you do the other 4 days of the week? Do you at least have open creative time when they can color and draw or use the little paints?

I think they definitely still need time everyday to use crayons and scissors and paint and glue, and all of that fun stuff, even if they aren't doing a full-fledged "craft". As someone else already said, it's more about the process than the end result.

When I had mostly 3 & 4 year olds, I'd put a bunch of scrap paper in the sensory table with scissors and let them have at it. Or give them a bunch of left over craft supplies and just let them create. Even with the pre-packaged crafts we do (I use Funshine), I tend to concentrate more on a specific skill that is part of the craft, rather than what it looks like. Then it's not about what happens with it once it goes home, it's about what's already happened during the creation process.

I do send all of the crafts home on a daily basis. I have three kids of my own to fill up my recycling bin, so I figure the daycare parents can use their own bins for their kids ::. I'm not big on clutter, so I prefer to admire and recycle/send home as much as possible.

[littlemommy]

Where do you all get your ideas for craft projects? My DCK's are all a little over 2, and starting to have enough of an attention span to do them. Do you get ideas from websites? I'm thinking we need to start off with easy things.

[daycare]

This might sound wrong but don't do the projects to please the parents. If the kids love them keep doing them. I have found that most parents are too busy to stop and display emotions or gratitude towards these types of things, even though they are delighted by them.

I say just keep doing them. I have a big display board and I staple them to the board for all to see right by my front door. On Friday I take them down and then they go home. If parents don't take them by Tuesday I trash them. Guess what most of them end up in the trash.

[SilverSabre25]

You could take pictures of each kid's craft and then send home/recycle/whatever the craft itself. At the end of the year, you could compile a scrapbook of the work the kid did over the year.

[erinalexmom]

If they are not 3D but more of a painting or drawing then you could pick out one that would be appropriate for each month of the year (for example a red painting for february for valentines) and then laminate them and put them together and put a calendar page with each one and make a calendar for each child to give thier parents at the end of the year as a Christmas gift

[PitterPatter]

If you only offer art/crafts ONCE a week, what do you do the other 4 days of the week? Do you at least have open creative time when they can color and draw or use the little paints?

Yes we color, paint, and have other creative/sensory time, sand, water play, threading pasta etc every day. Those are not what I was talking about tho. The coloring pages and paintings can be folded and tucked away without destroying them and the kids dont seem to mind that so I don't mind that so much. I was talking about the actual crafts the kids take time in making and are so proud of. Like the egg carton caterpillar, paperbag puppets, handprint flowers, coffee filter butterflies, picture frames... etc.. They all get shoved down a slot in a diaper bag and are literally ruined and 1 DCG really gets upset when she sees her things torn or broken. She is 4. I understand we can't save everything. I sneak and toss things are are less important to my child. I hang up or display the new items for a while and rotate so that he knows I am proud and so he too can enjoy what he has made.

This 1 particular DCM barely looks at the things her child makes. She just picks it up or takes it from DCGs hand and shoves them down the side of the diaper bag and leaves never looking at it again. There are literally months worth of newsletters, receipts, paintings, coloring pages and broken crafts in there. I guess it's just me but I find it very sad and just don't know what to say anymore. The kids make these and even ask to take them home. I think they should be allowed to enjoy them for at least a week before being shoved in a bag or tossed. DCG wanted the caterpillar to eat a leaf but it was shoed in the bag and broken. Even the picture frames we made last month are in there. The foam letters and animals bent and torn off and the picture of DCG wrinkled. It just doesnt seem normal to me for parents to do that. Then again I guess I don't have normal parents. I don't care what the parents think of what I supply for the kids but I do want them to appreciate what thier kids are doing for them. I do care what the kids feel about their own projects and how they are treated/dismissed. KWIM?

I am taking the advise about collecting and lamination but that also gave me another thought. I will get some shoe boxes and save the weeks or months crafts and send them home at the end of the month. That way the 3D creatures/projects don't get smashed, right away anyway. The kids can decorate the boxes 1 day too and I will paint thier names on the lid with them. Then maybe DCG can carry her own precious creations home and possibly enjoy them longer.

I had a DCB 2 yrs ago that wore a 4th of July hat (made out of a ceral box with construction paper, paint and glittery springy stars protruding from the top) everyday until it fell apart a month later. It was really nice to see him enjoying his creation!

Thank u everyone for the advise and help!

[PitterPatter]

Where do you all get your ideas for craft projects? My DCK's are all a little over 2, and starting to have enough of an attention span to do them. Do you get ideas from websites? I'm thinking we need to start off with easy things.

Some ideas I have made up, others have been gathered for years through classes or the previous center I worked with. I also subscribe to a few crafty magazines like Family Fun. They also have a website. I use DLTK, Kaboos, enchanted learning and a few other sites. I also buy from Oriental trading for holiday projects. We have a huge dollar store here and they have all kinds of trinkets and templates that I buy and just put out to see what the kids do. Some of the best crafts are made right from nature. Like for Thanksgiving we collect the largest maple leaves we can find and use it as a turkeys feathers. Then I print and help them color and cut the turkey body. Other times we use construction paper, felt, foam even tissue paper to make his chest feathers look 3D. The 3D crafts are really popular here. Those and the messiest like paint. They like the foam cut outs a lot too! We make a lot of projects just using traced hands and feet. I loved making those with my own child because even tho they get repeated each year with other daycare kids I get to see his hand projects growing. I have a lot of fun crafting with the kids and even learn new ideas from their imaginations!