9 Jan, 2009
Why Teach Arts and Crafts
Posted by teacherjulie @ 10:00 pm
Shelved under Being a (Special Ed) Teacher, Challenge Yourself, Just For Fun, My Family, Parenting, Teaching Techniques

There are so many arts and crafts activities that can be taught to children.

Last month, my homeschooling children and I tried doing several craft projects for the Christmas tree. We made handmade tree decorations, paper stockings, and photo ornaments.

The leftover materials I used were from the personalized gift tags which consisted of scrapbooking embellishments, craft glue and paper.

Why teach arts and crafts?

Arts and crafts promote creative play. It stimulates imagination, provided that models are not given for copying.

This can also teach patience to finish tasks, and help promote the ability to follow instructions.

Fine motor skills and eye-hand coordination as well as attention to details are enhanced.

Problem solving, planning, sequencing of steps and organizing materials needed are also being developed.

Why not teach your children arts and crafts? This will keep them busy and creative too.

And don’t forget to teach about cleaning up the mess afterward :)

This entry was posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Being a (Special Ed) Teacher, Challenge Yourself, Just For Fun, My Family, Parenting, Teaching Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Permalink | 5 Comments
10 Jan, 2009 @ 10:32 pm
Michael Cerreto said:

What a great suggestion about arts and crafts– what children used to do before video games.

I usually recommend arts and crafts activities to my special needs clients between sessions because of the variety of mental and physical benefits received. One method I recommend is drawing or painting (finger painting or with a brush) using the Double Doodle technique. See the link below from Super Learning Kids about Double Doodling:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4XU4p53Dwg

Double Doodle requires children to use both sides of their mind when drawing with both hands at the same time (while never letting their hand cross over the midline of the body– the imaginary line that runs down your body from the center of your head to between your feet, and separates the right and left sides of your body)

I have kids draw a simple image on Monday using DD, and add to that image using DD each day of the week using paints, crayons, colored pencils, etc. This requires them to use both sides of their mind to draw larger conceptual images on Monday and fine detail images the rest of the week.

Happy Double Doodling!

4 Feb, 2009 @ 7:44 am
Treasure Jar » Crafts for Kids said:

[...] crafts is one interesting way to spend time with children. As a homeschooling mother, the kids and I look [...]

10 Feb, 2009 @ 4:16 pm
Treasure Jar » Sending a Message said:

[...] and as a teacher. I have written articles about why it is important to teach these to children here and [...]

27 Sep, 2009 @ 9:28 am
teacherjulie.com » Frugal Christmas Part 2 said:

[...] How did it we do it? By doing arts and crafts. [...]

5 Oct, 2009 @ 11:45 pm
teacherjulie.com » October 5 is World Teachers’ Day said:

[...] There are so many things to teach: reading, love of books, dealing with anger management and cutting classes, teaching behavior management, not keeping (bad) secrets from trusted adults, dealing with emotions, distinguishing good touch from bad touch, correct spelling, even sitting and arts and crafts. [...]

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