Wednesday 17 April 2013

Craft With Kids ~ Making Paper Chains...

Making paper chains is a fun and educational craft activity to do with young children, who can already cut along a line with scissors. 

Craft with Kids ~ Making Paper Chains is a fun and educational craft activity. Kids learn without knowing they are learning ~ Threading My Way


Supplies:
  • coloured paper
  • safety scissors
  • sticky tape


First up, an adult will need to rule lines on multiple pieces of coloured paper. Using safety scissors, the child can then cut along the lines. Children can still cut themselves with safety scissors, so obviously, adult supervision is necessary. The safety scissors used for this project, are recommended for ages 3+.


The little people in the family have all preferred the pink scissors when learning to cut out, as they seem to be easier to use. When they can cut competently, but are still using safety scissors, they tend to gravitate towards the standard shaped scissors. With the standard shaped safety scissors the kids seem to be able to cut along lines more accurately and faster.


There is no need for me to explain how to make paper chains, as it's very obvious. We used four colours, and initially with direction, repeated the pattern... red, blue, green, yellow, for the entire length of the chain.


I cut the sticky tape and put it on the table. Sticky tape is faster, less messy and sticks far more readily than kids' glue.


Once the strips of paper are cut, the activity involves feeding the paper through the previous chain and attaching the sticky tape. All three of these activities are great for developing fine motor control.


Whenever she forgot which colour was next in the sequence, Little Miss would go back to the start of the chain and repeat the colours in order. It didn't take long for her to do this without any help.


You can see the art caddy I made last Christmas on the table. It has been extremely well used, so well worth the effort it took to make.

How long you make the chain will obviously depend on the attention span of the child. We compared the length to the table and our heights. Little Miss used my phone to take this photo, laughing and telling me I had a silly look on my face... LOL!!! We had lots of fun!!!


Throughout the activity, we talked and laughed, with Little Miss unknowingly learning or developing valuable skills:
  • fine motor skills
  • recognising colours
  • counting
  • comparing length... longer than, shorter than
  • sequencing and ordering
A fabulous way to spend quality time with a little one. What craft activities do you like to do with the little people in your life?

... Pam

8 comments:

  1. Paper chains are such a great activity! Thanks for the reminder - Anna is loving using scissors and tape for projects so I will definitely do this with her soon! x

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  2. Looks like a fun way to spend an afternoon! Before my older 2 could read, we used to make paper chains to count down to a birthday, vacation, or other special event. Each morning the kids would snip one of the circles off the chain until there were none left. It was a great visual to keep track of how many days there were until the special day!

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    Replies
    1. This is so true! I remember making them with my grandma and thinking it was kind of dumb (lol) at the time but here I am now some 30 something years later making them with a 102yr old lady I take care of. Wishing it was my grandma sitting bext to me. Hahaha
      We used flour and water also but right now we are using glue dots. How far we have come. Hahaha

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  3. Oh my - I remember making paper chains when I was little - that was a VERY long time ago - at least 10 (ok, 45+, LOL) years ago! We made them for Christmas decorations - aaaaaaaaaaah the memories :D I think we used magazines for the paper - I don't remember having construction paper at the time, but I can remember making glue with flour and water, and gluing the chains together :D

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