art and crafts?
I am babysitting and i need arts and crafts suggestions for kids 4-9
Suggested Reading:
Creative Crafts for Kids Stimulate your child's creative talent and imagination with fun crafts for two- to ten-year-olds. There are novel ideas for cards, gifts, deco... Read More >





Here’s an easy one and easy clean up with water and a broom. Get some colored sidewalk chalk and sandpaper. Put a square of sandpaper in the middle of a cheap paper plate then have the children rub the chalk on the sandpaper to grind it into a fine powder. Save the different colors in different bowls. Mix the colored chalk with fine sand (easily purchased at a home improvement store like Lowe’s or Home Depot) then pour the colored sand into empty baby food or other glass containers with lids. Layer the colors then put on the lid and decorate the lids with those little foam cutouts or flowers or whatever. Viola’… a pretty paperweight for someone’s desk.
Be sure to do this outside, then just hose off the colored sand and chalk that spilled on the ground.
Enjoy! And bless you for wanting to do something besides park them in front of a TV all day!
Check out these sites:
http://www.familyfun.com
http://www.amazingmoms.com
http://www.crayola.com
familycrafts.about.com
kidsdomain.com
dltk-kids.com
One I like to do… esp. with this wide of an age range is:
Use photos from several magazines
they can cut them up and paste the pieces down to create a color full collage. Then you can cut the collages up into puzzle pieces (big pieces for the 4 yr old and smaller pieces for the 9yr. old (I let the older kids cut their own up). Then mix up the pieces and let them solve the puzzle…
its fun!
Shrink Art
Remove the label from a 2 or 3 liter soda bottle.
Cut the top and bottom off of the bottle.
Cut up the side of the soda bottle.
Now you have a sheet of shrink-it material.
Draw or trace a pattern on with a black magic marker. Cut out your pattern.
Now color it with permanent markers.
Pre-heat oven to 325° .
Place plastic on a pan with the colored side up.
Put in the oven for two or more minutes.
It will still be a little curled.
Have an adult take it out and put it on a cold surface.
Press it down hard with a piece of card board covered in tin foil. It will press down flat.
How about making jewelry for the girls? You can pick up a beading kit for $10-20 at a craft store, and let them each make their own bracelet. That way they’ll have something to do, plus you can make points with both them and their parents, because they “get” to come back and play with you.
painting elbow macroni then making them into necklaces
fold a paper in 1/2 drop a few drops of paint in the seam, refold and rub the seam…open it up and have a picture