First off, I've to state that the crafts below are not my ideas. They were obtained from various websites (and modified to suit his abilities and according to what materials I had around the house), which I've unfortunately now forgotten and thus unable to give credit appropriately. Apologies.
Next, most of the crafts below required significant input from me. My son's effort was probably 30% at most. I didnt want you to think he could do it all by himself.
Even though he didn't contribute much, I simply wanted him to see what could be achieved with his hands. I wanted to encourage him to use his fingers and hands, in a fun way. It's boring to merely cut straight lines off worksheets. Also, I hoped to show him what a bit of creativity can achieve (other people's creativity not mine!).
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| Toilet paper craft |
Christmas Toilet Paper Craft
This "family" was made from toilet paper rolls. We made one character a day. It took too long to make the first one, Santa. So my lesson learnt was to prepare the materials before hand!
As with all craft projects, I hoped to develop his fine motor skills. In this project, he helped to colour, to apply glue, to paste.
He was rather proud of the end products, which is good cos I wanted to boost his self esteem/confidence (even though it's not 100% his own effort). When Papa came home at the end of each day's work, he proudly showed them off.
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| Paper baubles |
This paper bauble project took many days to make. We ended up with a dozen colourful baubles, and stopped when I sensed that he was bored with this project.
It was a great way to have him practice his scissoring skill. This was the FIRST time he was able to cut!
There was also quite a bit of preparation needed for his project. I cut long strips of similarly coloured magazine paper and kept in separate containers according to colour. He then had the freedom to choose which colours he wanted to work with on a particular day. His job was to snip those strips into squares, apply wet glue, place them in a designated place to dry out, and apply glue on the circumference. I did the rest like cutting the cardboard, hole punching, and applying the glitter dust.
Btw, I now have several different types of glue bottles - dry glue stick, wet glue that comes with an application stick, wet glue that has a roller ball on the tip - all bought with the intention of exercising different finger/hand muscles.
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| Button wreath Christmas tree decoration |
I thought this was a great idea but turned out too challenging for him. It's really a disguised lacing activity!
Its made from thin pipe cleaner, with various Christmassy coloured buttons thread through it. The buttons were too small for him to handle.
But there was still some benefit: I had him lay out the buttons in a pattern (an early maths skill); he still had to pick up the small buttons and lay them out (pincer grip); he had to use both hands to lace even though I had my hands over his to help him.
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| Paper wreath |
In this project (which also took several days to complete), I had him trace the outline of his hand onto a cardboard. I cut that out and then used it as a template. He traced the outline of that template onto green paper many times. I cut out several little green hands, which he then had to apply wet glue to, and paste them onto a cardboard ring. He also applied glue using the roller glue bottle unto the centre of the ring and a few "fingers". I then scattered glitter dust on those bits.
Paper Christmas stocking
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| Paper Chirstmas stocking decoration |
I thought this was a great idea to get him to practice lacing. He did like decorating the stocking with Disney's Pixar Car (his favourite movie) stickers and the glittering christmas tree. But when it came to lacing the front and back of the stocking, he refused! I only managed to have him lace two or three holes! I'm not sure if he had too much of craft work (this was the last craft work for Dec) or that he was just too tired at that time.
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