Rainy Day Craft Ideas for Toddlers This Summer

There’s no doubt about it - toddlers can be a bundle of energy. And if you add rain to the mix, they may drive a poor mom, dad or babysitter crazy. Try out some of these fun rainy day craft ideas for toddlers. These crafts may help keep your toddler happy and you sane.

On a more sunny summer's day you can try out a fun Kids Summer Crafts – Caterpillar - Butterfly House that any kid will enjoy.

Of course, it helps if you have a box of craft items you can use with your toddler. Glue, glitter, feathers, construction paper, yarn, pony beads, finger paints, google eyes, pieces of felt, unmatched socks, old magazines and safety scissors are a few of the items you may want to have on hand. If you have things available, a rainy day won’t catch you by surprise.

Start an alphabet collage with your toddler. Go through old magazines and have them cut out letters from the titles of articles. These will generally be much larger and will be easier for your toddler to cut out. Glue the same letter on a sheet of paper, and then go back through the magazine looking for pictures of items starting with that letter. For instance, A – apple, alligator, adding machine, etc. You’ll end up with 26 pages, one for each letter, as well as a front cover and back cover. Your toddler will begin to learn their letters and the sounds the letters make.

Another way to teach them while they have fun is to let them use finger paint. Give them several sheets of paper and finger paint, and let them loose. However, you may want to teach them to “write” their name with finger paint or show them different shapes. Of course, they may have so much fun feeling the squishy paint between their fingers they may not want to stop once the sun comes back out.

Make a sock puppet with a couple of the unmatched socks you have lying around. Your toddler can glue pieces of yarn on top for hair, glue google eyes on if you have them, and cut out shapes for the mouth. Be sure to let the puppet dry completely before your toddler begins playing with it or the pieces may come apart and end up where they don’t belong. You can do a similar craft using paper bags.

It’s quite possible your toddler has started a collection of rocks; many toddlers do. If they have some larger smooth rocks, they could make paperweights out of them. Let them paint and decorate the rock however they’d like. When it’s dry, they can give it as a gift or keep it for themselves.

These are just a few fun rainy day craft ideas for toddlers you may want to try. The internet is also a great resource for more fun ideas you can use on rainy days, as well as your local public library. Your greatest resource, however, is your toddler's own creativity and having someone to share that creativity with.

Beginners Crafts To Boredom-Busting Craft Activities for Your Pre-Schooler

A bored pre-schooler is definitely something we want to prevent! So engage your child and get started on some fun craft projects. A very good option is Mosaic Crafts For Beginners, making use of seeds so it is not too heavy on the pocket!

Of course there are many other excellent ideas as well and here are some ideas:

Paper Plate Flowers

Bring some springtime inside with this fun project. This is also a good way to recycle old paper towel or toilet paper tubes.

Materials:

• A variety of paper plates of any size or color
• Brown, yellow and green construction paper
• Glue
• Cardboard tubes such as paper towel, wrapping paper, or toilet paper. Varying heights make a nice effect.
• Paints (if using white paper plates)

Directions:

1. Wrap the cardboard tubes in green construction paper. Glue the seam.

2. If you are using white paper plates, paint them in bright colors. Encourage your pre-schooler to paint from the center outward, like petals.

3. Cut circles from the brown and yellow construction paper in various sizes (these will be the flower centers).

4. Glue the circles onto the center of the colored or painted plates.

5. Glue the backs of the plates to the tops of the green cardboard tubes.

6. Cut out and glue green leaves to the flower "stems" if you like.

7. Set the flowers up on a sheet of green construction paper that represents grass, and make a flower field.

With a little modification, you could make a forest of trees using the same technique. Your pre-schooler can use the woods or flower field as a scenic backdrop for imaginative play.

Tissue Box Car

One of the keys to making boredom-busting crafts is to create things your kids can play with after they're made. A tissue box car is not only fun to make, it's fun to play with!

Materials:

Tissue box
One sharp pencil
Two drinking straws
Four plastic tops, such as those from 2-litres, milk jugs, etc.
Paints, construction paper, puffy paint, etc.
Hot glue

Directions:

1. Carefully remove the plastic from the tissue box opening.

2. Using the sharp pencil, the adult can punch four holes in the base of the box. These will be where the wheels go, so try to make the holes evenly spaced.

3. Poke one straw through each pair of holes, pushing it through until it comes out the other sid