New Year is approaching, from the past to the future, so what can we do now to welcome the up coming years. How about trying another crafts with our children, and giving them more activities in crafts, and more value about New Year.
The Countdown Circle
In every New Year’s Eve, people will start counting minutes before midnight. Now, try to count the day before the 1st, ask your toddler to take each day off from the circle, until the 1st of January comes. It can teach them to count, it fun, and you can make it easily with your toddler.
Use paper plate and color it with bright color. Count the days before New Year and prepare the same amounts of colorful sequins or buttons as the amounts of the days. Glue the buttons or sequins just a little, make sure they attach hardly enough on the paper, but still easily to be pulled out or taken off. Decorate the plate and buttons as you desire, hang it with ribbon on children’s room. Start from the day they finish the craft, ask them to take each button for each day. When the buttons are finished – It’s New Year 2011
The Noise Maker
Never throw away your used bottle, use it for making a lot of noise to welcome the New Year, and children love to make noise, giving such a pleasure to do that.
Prepare an empty plastic bottle, fill it with many small and colorful things (beans, beads, coins, buttons, marbles, pins, etc). Decorate the bottle as you pleased, you can paint it, cover it with white papers and stick pieces of paper on it, etc. Put the cap very tightly – very tight because usually children have too much curiosity to know what inside the bottle, so make sure children won’t be able to open it over and over again – or you can leave the bottle’s decoration empty at the bottom, so your children will still be able to see what’s inside. Decorate the cap with ribbons, crepe papers or strings, and shake it.
The Countdown Clock
Teach the little ones about time and clock, where there are arms that can move around and there are twelve numbers on it. Ask them to countdown and move the arms until 8pm, instead of 12pm. They can check and follow the arms from the real clock.
Decorate paper plate just like the clocks, with all numbers around it, use numbers from the old calendar that we are not going to use it anymore at New Year, just cut number as you desire, or you can just write down the numbers on it. Prepare cardboard for the arms (long and short) and decorate the arms. Put the arms in the middle of the clock and poke it with metal fastener or scrapbook brad, and tight it up. If you do not have metal fastener or scrapbook brad, you can use push pin (bigger one) and cover the needle at the back with small pieces of eraser – however really make sure your little ones would not be able to take the eraser off – Place the decorated clock or hang it, and let the children move and spin the arms.
The Resolution Card
For most people, New Year always comes with New Resolution, and we can start make the resolution craft for our children. It teaches them the meaning of New Year, that every years we have to achieve better then the last one, even for the smallest achievement.
Prepare cardboard for them to write or draw about their resolution (if it’s picture, you can write it for them). Decorate it as you please, and place, hang or put it at the open space in your house that your children can see it everyday. Use ribbon, crepe papers, or string to hang it, or make it as a frame that has leg to stand it, or use magnet so that you can put it on the fridge.
The New Year Box
Do not waste the old card box, but change it into the New Year box for your children, or even for each of the family’s member.
Prepare the box, and cover it with large papers, or newspaper. Put a sentence of messages, quotes, advices, etc, taken from the magazines, or used book. Put the sentence on it, or put another pictures, decorate it as you please, or make it in vintage design. For your children, they can put pictures of their own, or pictures of character the like. They also can put their pictures taken from the past year, it’s gonna be their own “scrapbox”.
Here are other crafts that are easy to make with your toddler, and definitely it’s going to be fun.
