Crafts for a School Holiday

With the long Presidents’ Day weekend coming up, and with schools closed today in many local school districts, parents will be looking for activities to keep their children busy and entertained – especially for moms and dads who will be spending the day as a working holiday.

Crafts are an excellent activity for a day off from school – they get kids’ creative juices flowing and can create hours of fun. Below are some crafts that are favorites in my home:

Cardboard playhouse ($37): Made out of a single piece of cardboard, this biodegradable and recyclable house is tall enough (49 inches) for little ones to stand inside, and comes with a set of washable markers that kids can use to color the playhouse. I put one up in my basement just last week, and my daughters have been having a great time coloring and decorating their little house. The house is easy to assemble, and while I haven’t tried to take it down yet, it is supposedly simple to fold back up again and store away. This is a craft that little boys can have as much fun with as little girls.

Cardboard dollhouse ($21): I bought the cardboard dollhouse kits by Creativity for Kids for my daughters during the winter holiday break from school, and the houses continue to entertain them. Not only can children color the interior and the exterior of the house, but the house comes with decorative papers that kids can use to create wallpaper, flooring, etc. The kit even comes with 3-D paper furniture and paper dolls with stands that are ready to be decorated and designed. If you have a budding mini interior designer in your family, this is the gift for him or her.

Sun catchers ($4 and up): Most sun catcher kits are vastly different from the ones we grew up with. To make a sun catcher when I was a kid, you had to drop glass beads into a metal frame, heat it all up, and hope that the beads would form a nice and smooth expanse of color in your sun-catcher frame (which they didn’t always do). Many kits today leave out those frustrating beads. Instead, all kids have to do is use the enclosed markers or pots of paint to color or paint the plastic sun catchers. This kit from Amazon.com includes cute insects of all kinds and will equally entertain a boy or a girl.

Stepping stones ($14-$18): With spring getting closer (at least we can hope), my kids are itching to use the stepping stone craft sets they received as gifts for our garden. This sort of craft kit can be found in local craft stores, as well as online. They make beautiful mementos to place in the garden.