Rainy day craft for young children

Cold rainy and even snowy weather is right around the corner. Some of you (like myself) might already be feeling the cold damp weather that is often associated with the fall months. So, what do you do when your kids want to go outside and it's just too cold and wet?

Well, perhaps they'd enjoy a fun and easy  beaded project to make. This boosts young children's creativity and helps them with their fine motor skills at all the same time.

Materials:

• Various colored and shaped beads
• A piece of cardboard (or other heavy stocked paper)
• A small metal clip
• Glue (I used a hot glue gun)
• Scissors
• Crayons (optional)
• Paper scraps or gift wrap (optional)
  

Take your piece of cardboard and either freehand draw or trace an animal shape to it. (We did a fish as an activity to match the Rainbow Fish book we had read for the summer reading program at our local libray) Cut out the shape. Depending on the age of the child doing the craft, an adult might have to do this step.

Allow your child to choose the beads they would like to add to the cut out animal. If you are using glue that is child friendly (unlike the hot glue gun we used) you can let your child glue the beads on by themselves. If you, like me, use the hot glue gun allow your child to show you where to place the beads. This way they are still involved in the creation process. You can also glue down pieces of paper, gift wrap or even color with crayons. (My son colored the back of his fish with crayons.)

When the project is complete take a small office clip and clip to an outer edge. This will enable you to hang your project from a nail in the wall in your child's room.

Enjoy! Your child will love this (or at least mine did since he was always fascineated by my bead collection) and they will take pride in their creation.