You may not realise it, but as your kitchen table turns into a crafting mess, your children are picking up some genuinely important skills. Getting stuck in to an art and craft project usually means a happy chaos of glue, paint, glitter, toilet roll tubes and wild imagination — and that’s exactly what makes it worthwhile.
Here are 8 reasons why craft activities for kids are so important.
If the thought of doing craft activities with your kids fills you with horror, it’s worth knowing just how much children get from art and craft sessions. Their creativity is stoked, their fine motor skills are refined, their confidence and problem-solving abilities improve, and you get some genuinely fun time together.
So pop on the plastic table cover, crack open the craft box, try to relax about the mess, and read on to see why crafting with kids is so worthwhile.
1. Crafting Helps Kids Communicate Their Feelings
Parent asks, “Why did you put that hat on the elephant you made?” The child answers, “Because it makes me happy.”
A child given free rein to make and paint to their heart’s content will often match their creations to their feelings. Colour, different art materials, different textures, and a little inspiration from a parent can prompt children to express themselves with real originality.
Recommended Reading: 50 Brilliant Ideas for Kids Art & Crafts
2. Kids Enjoy Seeing That They Can Improve
By exposing kids to a wide range of crafting activities, they’ll begin to home in on the ones that really spark their interest. Some might enjoy moulding with clay, others making faces in trays of plaster of Paris. Try to expose your kids to lots of different art and craft forms at home.
As their talent for a particular craft improves, they’ll also enjoy looking back at earlier creations to see how far they’ve come, which does wonders for their confidence.
Recommended Reading: 10 No-Glue Crafts for Preschoolers
3. Schoolwork Can Improve
A happy side effect of crafting sessions is that children’s schoolwork can also improve. Concepts that might otherwise be tricky to grasp become clearer when they’re explored with a bit of lateral thinking.
Children who build a house from various household items often get a better understanding of three-dimensional shapes. A favourite story character, brought to life using scraps of coloured cloth, may become more memorable — and in turn, reading becomes a way to discover other interesting characters. Using two circles for eyes, two lollipop sticks for arms and two for legs also introduces basic arithmetic along the way.
4. Crafting Teaches Kids to Follow Instructions
Arts and crafts are two quite different activities, offering different learning opportunities. Art therapist Anna Reyner draws a distinction between the two: “While art is an open-ended or ‘unstructured’ activity, crafts are goal oriented or ‘structured’.”
It’s this goal-oriented part that teaches kids to follow instructions — by working through a simple set of steps, in the correct order, they complete their craft. Crafting also teaches kids the consequences of skipping steps, and why it pays to do things the right way the first time. A valuable life lesson.
Recommended Reading: Funky Crafts for Kids Aged 8-12yrs
5. Learn Teamwork & Social Skills
Working on a craft project together with your child can help improve their teamwork, communication and social skills, as they learn to co-operate and communicate to complete their projects.
Crafting can also be a great team activity at a kids’ party. Set up a production line where each child does a part of the craft. Raising your child to become a team player sets them up with a valuable skill for all walks of life.
Recommended Reading: 10 Creative Kids Party Activities
6. Allows Quality Time Between Parent & Child
Doing crafts with your child gives you a chance to spend some quality time together and make memories that often last longer than the craft itself.
As you craft together, you have the opportunity to talk to each other — and you’ll generally hear more, at these relaxed moments, about their day, their hopes or their worries than you might otherwise.
7. Crafting Improves Fine Motor Skills
The activity of sticking, colouring, gluing, cutting and keeping within lines or patterns helps develop fine motor skills and improves hand-eye co-ordination in kids. Even simple tasks like separating squares of tissue paper and scrunching them into the right shape are great for developing these skills.
Simple paper craft activities are a lovely way to build fine motor skills while teaching kids to follow instructions to complete an activity. They — and you — may not realise it, but even small crafting exercises like these teach your kids a lot of genuinely valuable skills.
8. Teaches Kids to Try
Craft projects are a great way to teach kids to try something, and potentially even fail. We’ve all had plenty of failed attempts at crafting, and that ultimately teaches kids that it’s good to try something anyway, even if it’s not a roaring success.
Finally, don’t worry if you’re not the world’s greatest crafter. It’s still worth making time for projects with your kids — it shows them you’re willing to give things a go, and gives you quality time together in the process.
And you never know, you may be surprised by how much you both enjoy it!
Frequently Asked Questions
What skills do children develop through craft activities?
Craft activities help children build fine motor skills, hand-eye co-ordination, confidence, problem-solving ability and emotional expression, while also supporting teamwork and communication when crafting with others.
What’s the difference between art and craft for kids?
Art tends to be open-ended and unstructured, letting children create freely, while craft is more goal-oriented and structured, following a set of steps to reach a finished result. Both offer different, valuable learning experiences.
How can craft activities help with schoolwork?
Hands-on crafting can make abstract concepts easier to grasp — building shapes helps with understanding 3D forms, counting materials introduces basic maths, and creating characters can make stories more memorable.
Do I need to be good at crafting to do it with my kids?
Not at all. What matters most is spending the time together and showing your child you’re willing to try, even if the results aren’t perfect. The quality time and the lesson in giving things a go matter far more than the finished craft.
Related Articles
- 50 Brilliant Ideas for Kids Art & Crafts
- 10 No-Glue Crafts for Preschoolers
- Funky Crafts for Kids Aged 8-12yrs
- 10 Creative Kids Party Activities
Save This for a Rainy Day
Craft ideas always come in handy on a wet afternoon or a quiet weekend. Bookmark this article or save it to your favourite parenting board so you have it ready whenever inspiration (or boredom) strikes.
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