Why buy greeting cards when your kids can make them?

Whilst this is still a simple craft and we're working on our Creativity and Fine-motor skills, ultimately, the most valuable part about making greeting cards with children, is the Literacy involved.

Ages: 2+

(M was 3 years old. See the Handy Tips at the bottom for ideas to simplify or extend to meet your childs needs)

Materials: Carboard, foam stickers, letter stickers

(Obviously you can use whatever you have on hand)

Fold/cut your cardboard to make the right sized card. (We used black sparkle cardboard here... try getting black cardboard, lightly painting with glitter glue and leaving to dry)

Have your child decorate the front of the card as they like using the provided materials

We actually found a Happy Birthday Sticker. If we didn't have that, I would have had my daughter spell out the words using the provided letter stickers.

Finding the letters of "Uncle Dave" provided a great opportunity to practice letter recognition and spelling

*hint.. for younger children, write the words they're wanting to spell on scrap paper and let them match and find the letters to spell the words

The inside of the card is as (if not more) important to the front.

While they are very young, always encourage them to draw (remember this is pre-writing) something and to tell you about it. Keep bringing their focus back to the purpose of the card and who it's for.

As my 3y/o daughter is pre-writing she then dictates what she wants the inside of the card to say and I write it in. (Word for word! So cute haha)

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by helping suggest to your child the type of things you would expect to say on the type of greeting card you're making (eg.. most birthday cards use the words, Happy Birthday etc). Write the words for them and let them find corresponding letters to practice their letter recognition. Focus on the creativity and design and use this chance to start teaching them about letter writing.

- Extend this activity by encouraging your child to brainstorm ideas for the front and inside the card. Have the child write the inside of the card themselves with any assistance needed. Work on letter writing and start to encourage them to see the punctuation used.

- Letter Writing is a style of writing that you can teach your child about. Start with the basics of how we start and finish a card/letter (ie. Dear _____ ,  From _______ etc). Talk about different variations and how you might write to someone you didn't know well as opposed to someone close to you.

- Mix it up by using a variety of different craft materials to embellish your cards. Eg sequins, patterned paper, ribbons etc.

- Talk with your child about what they are doing. Encourage their creativity and use this time to discuss colours, patterns, borders etc. It's also a great time to talk to your child about the person they're making the card for





Happy playing,
Debs :)

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This activity provides a fun and sensory way for children to get creative whilst personalising something for themselves or as a gift.

This would be great for making personalised canvas art, pictures for framing or as we used it, to make gift cards.

Ages: 2-6+

Materials: Paper (or cardboard/canvas), stickers, inkpads

We used the foam stickers as they are good for little hands

Our little inkpads are not technically "child fingerpaints". These were purchased from Kmart and are intended for use with scrapbooking and stamps. 

I am always present and only use these with children that won't put their fingers in their mouth. 

The ink washes off fine afterwards.

 Stick stickers in any design. Here is a name card we did

 Let your child put fingerprints all over the card, ensuring that all around the stickers is covered

Carefully peel off the stickers and your design is done.

 Let your child get creative with their own designs and patterns

Little stickers are fabulous for children developing their pincer grip and fine motor skills

 3 different designs

 Wonderful rainbow of fingerprints

We decided to leave the stickers on a couple of the designs as we thought they looked really cool

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this for younger children by assisting them with peeling the backs of stickers. Allow your young child to stick and arrange stickers as they like and then encourage them with the fingerprinting around/over the stickers

- Extend this by providing number and letter stickers and using for learning spelling, sight words, making number posters and more

- Mix it up by using paints instead of inkpads. You will find the colours blend more with paints

- Depending on the type of material you use as the base of your creation, you may find the stickers difficult to get off without ripping the paper. So as to avoid disappointment, test sticking some stickers and peeling them off your surface first. Note: the harder your child presses the stickers down while fingerprinting over them, the harder it may be to remove the stickers cleanly. Using canvas should alleviate this problem completely or just be careful removing the stickers from paper.

- Use this time to talk about the different colours being used or the letters/numbers, stickers, patterns etc.

- Practice new words such as "overlapping" to assist your child's understanding and language development.

- Remember that sometimes children just create, they don't need it to be a specific item at the end. It could just be an abstract creation. Allow this and don't push them to think they must make something "real."

Happy playing and creating,
Debs :)

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For this fun and easy activity we split it into 2 segments. Painting the crown with water colour paints and cut out sponge shapes and after it dried, adding the decorations.

We used 2 pieces of cardboard to "measure" around Maddie's head and then I cut them to size, stapled the 2 pieces together and cut the points out.

The idea was to do sponge prints on the crown with water colour paints 

 However, she decided she'd rather paint the whole thing using a sponge piece

 When the crown was dried, it was time to decorate! Together we talked about what "embellishments" she'd like on her crown and set them out for her.

Using fine motor skills to peel stickers off a sheet and stick them on.

 Gluing

 Glittering!!

The crown all finished and ready for imaginative play!

Some tips:

- This is an easy activity for kids of all ages and you can decorate however you please with whatever you have on hand.

- To extend this activity, have your child do the measuring of their head and the cutting of the crown points.

- Talk about what you are doing with your child. Use new language and descriptive words like, "embellishments" This will help with their language development.

- Repeat the activity as many times as you like using different crafty ways to decorate each time.

- Once your crown is finished, use it for imaginative play. We have a whole set of them in our "fantasy tub" next to our dress up box.

- Further extend this activity by finding and reading together books about Kings, Queens, Princesses and Princes. A favourite series at our house is, "Little Princess" by Tony Ross.

Debs :)



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