What are some easy crafts to do with a 2 1/2 year old?

Answer 1

--finger painting--use big pieces of poster board
--macaroni art (glue different shapes on construction or other heavy duty paper, wait to dry and paint)
--making puppets out of old socks--decorate with buttons, fabric paint
--Michael's crafts has these kits to decorate a mug or make plaster molds of hands and feet
--use Rit Dye (and rubber gloves!!) to make tie dye t-shirts
--use fabric markers to decorate t shirts
--trace their outline on a couple of pieces of poster board and have them color clothes on them.
--sidewalk chalk art. Crayola has these great things out now where you can also paint on the sidewalk and it is washable.
--molding clay makes great shapes (andit's a stress reliever for parents!!!)
--homemade play doh or "glue goo"

Answer 2

If you really want to have a ball.

Build a house.

No really. A playhouse. From cardboard boxes or a wooden one from a DIY-store. Could be done cheap. Indoor out outdoor as long as you can build it indoor (and get it out again).

Get all sorts of stuff going on. paint the walls, use wallpaper, paint that. Glue stuff on the roof, birdfeathers, cerealboxes, 'collectables'.

Does not have to happen in a day.. you could take weeks to do this.. collecting stuff should be done in advance. A 2 year old is a bit young to wait for everything to gather.

Answer 3

Start by getting some big containers or boxes. Watch at Dollar stores/sales = pick up crafty/educational things to put in the 'theme' boxes -- 1 for paints-markers & paper stuff, 1 maybe for playdough, & 1 for activity books and colored pencils ... and so on. Keep these on an upper shelf with games you don't want to loose pieces of (got Candy Land?). This also teaches clean-up. You keep track of stuff and also have fun things for rainy days or if someones going bye-bye and your toddler wants to go too.

Answer 4

Get a couple paper plates, pour some dry beans, beads, jingle bells, or whatever into one of them, and staple another plate on top to make a tambourine. Your child can use markers, stickers, glitter, ribbons, etc. to decorate the outside. My kids love this craft. Lay some clear contact paper sticky-side-up on the table and let your child stick magazine cutouts all over it. When s/he is finished you can help lay another clear piece of contact paper sticky-side-down and voila, you have a customized placemat for the table. :-) You can also use this method to make little flip books for the car (bind them with yarn) or bookmarks to give away as gifts. On a sunny day, give your child a paintbrush and a plastic bowl full of water. Let him/her "paint" with water on the porch or sidewalk. The sun will dry it up eventually and then s/he can start all over if she wants. Give your child a handful of colorful pipe cleaners and some big plastic beads. My kids could spend an hour straight just sitting at the table and putting beads onto pipe cleaners, then bending them into shapes to make ornaments or "snakes." Make your own play-dough with one of the many recipes you can find online. If your child is prone to eating the dough, that's fine - most of the handmade dough recipes aren't very tasty, but they're also not toxic. :-) Just go to Google and search for "make your own play dough." You can also make your own fingerpaint, but that's a whole lot messier. Make paper bag puppets. There are some great ideas for puppets at DLTK's website.

Answer 5

i have the same thought, my daughter is 2 and a half and i dont know what to do with her besides letting her play outside or building blocks with her, whenever i give her a cryan or marker to color with she chews the tips off the markers, she breaks the cryans and peels the paper off the cryans, so i think paint is out of the question for now, cuz she probably will try to eat that too! my daughter gets too excited and shes an only child right now, so she has a problem with shareing and waiting her turn and even listening and being patient is out of the question, cuz she gets upset when im only trying to help her. so for me arts and crafts are out of the question!

Answer 6

Get lots of coloured paper from a craft shop, a safe pair of scissors and some non toxic glue. Then make a collage.

You can also use pipe cleaners, fabric, buttons etc, but nothing small enough to swallow or sharp or pointy.

Answer 7

Anything with glue & big pieces to stick to it. When my three year old was that age he loved it when we would just take old magazine, rip them up and then glue it to a piece of construction paper. Finger painting always works well and playing with clay gets them some sensory fun that they crave at that age. (They do make clay that is ediable!!) You can buy bags of feathers and other things too that work really well with glue, I do recommend a glue stick though. I'm sure whatever you want to do with the child will make them happy!! HAVE FUN!!

Answer 8

Mix Epsom Salt with WARM water and let students paint on dark (blue, black, purple) paper. I used this in the winter for snow pictures. Watch kids...Make sure they don't drown the paper or it won't turn out right. Let dry and they have created a sparkling masterpiece.
Use small, colorful sponges (in all shapes and sizes) and let them sponge paint with all different colors. Or you can use like shells, rocks, leaves, and sticks.
Play a form of marshmallow tic-tac-toe. Each child has a paper with like six squares on it. Each square has one of like 2 or 3 colors. Instead of lining up the marshmallows. Mark the marsh. with coordinating colors and have them match boxes to marshmallow. MAKE SURE YOU BUY ENOUGH TO EAT ALSO, OR THEY WILL EAT THE COLORED ONES.

Answer 9

My 2 1/2 yr old son loves to paint. Lay out some paper and let him/her paint. Put old clothes on her/him though. Oh, and dont worry about her/him getting dirty, just let em have fun.

Answer 10

the only thing that I could get my son to do when he was that age, that didn't include putting the stuff in his mouth was taking a plastic cheap pool and putting an old shirt on him, and pull up and a big pad of paper and letting him use finger paint in the pool.... it was a lot of fun, he decorated his paper, shirt, and when we were done, I got to hose the pool out, and him.. (during summer) he loved it! the color-ific stuff by craola is great in the house by the way....