In Need Of Many Crafty and Messy Play Ideas

[kittykatty2000]

Hey All ,

I need help with craft activity ideas and messy play ideas, that don't cost alot and can use everyday items.

I work in an oout of school club so only work 3 hours in the afternoon and we are running out of ideas to do crafty/messy type activities that the children can do in a very short amount of time.

I need ideas that are simple, cheap, mainly using everyday items or cheap items that we can buy, easy to do and most of all that will be FUN to do.

I am sort of like in charge of the craft cupboard and the manager would like to sit down with me, and come up with a little craft/messy type book so that we always have ideas around.

So please if you have any ideas, please please can you let me know them all. The more ideas the better I need loads and loads.

Thank you so much everyone

[tutu]

Featherstone publishing little books, all the ideas in one place. baker ross has great ideas which you can make yourself.

[kittykatty2000]

Thank tutu I like looking in books as do get good ideas, but I would like ideas that people do in their work place that I might be able to do.

Anymore ideas out there please

[Plummie]

At our setting we use a Cornflour and water mixture to make 'goo'. We then add a food colourant and hide small items inside and let the children explore. For our older kids, we covered their eyes and asked them to describe what they felt (we hid small toy plastic animals) and to see if they could guess the animals. They all love it - but it can get very messy!!

[kittykatty2000]

Yeah we do the cornflour as well but neva thought of hiding things in it, thats a good idea.
I could put that in the book that im trying to do, so when people do the planning they can see all the ideas in there. Thank you

[FARLEYS]

we use shaving foam.......the kids love it.....same idea just fill a tray with shaving foam and hide things in it, obviously use the one for sensitive skins

Make icing sugar planets 'Paint' sugar paer with a solution (fairly runny) of water & icing sugar. Then drop powder paint into it and watch it spread out. I haven't done this for years and cant remember whether the paint is made up or you drop the powder in. I do remember them looking spectaculor though. Also they take ages (probably overnight) to dry.
Jelly play, much the same as corrnflour or shaving foam.
I'm assuming your children are older as it's after school club?
Take photos of each child, print (just cheaply on copier paper) and let them make a collage of themselves.
draw a lifsize body (draw around a boy & girl) and do a group collage of each one to display
Clay - large bag of clay is fairly cheap and you could let them make models one day and paint them the next. Paint over with pva glue after as it varnishes and protects
Lastly there is always junk modeling to fall back on or as/if yours are older what about paper maiche? Mine always did this in first school.
Blow up a balloon, paper maiche around it and then use cut down loo rolls for legs/snout. When dy paint and then burst balloon. You could do same for a volcano.
You could do cold cookery with them.
Just depends on how old they are and if you can continue or finish off activites following day.

[watgem]

we've enjoyed hiding musical instruments in shredded paper, using pet bedding[hay] in the toy farm, a builder tray full of compost and diggers etc, gardening-planting sunflower seeds etc in decorated pots,water painting outdoors, cooked and coloured spagetti with scissors tongs bowls etc,making own snacks, icing cakes and biscuits if you don't have cooking facilities, big boxes-perhaps parents or local retailers could donate some? chalking outdoors and adding water, puddle jumping, smelly playdough-add peppermint essence or vanilla to the playdough as you make it, bubbles using different sized and shaped wands and blowers, string painting, "flick" painting with different kinds of brushes, painting using proper decorators brushes and rollers on a very large scale. Poundland is good for cheap resources also your local scrapstore if you have one and the featherstone 2little book of" are brilliant hope this helps

[shellyjoe]

We use take away food containers and freeze them with water and a mixture of toys (winter animals like penguins, polar bears etc... give the children small wodden hammers and they have great fun trying to get the toys out, this covers many topics of learning... Winter, how ice melts, what is ice made from, where the animals come from etc... You can also mix cornflour with ice and it stickes the cubes together, try building you own ice bridge etc... It is very messy so we tend to use a builders troth and a tarpauline sheet underneath.
Have fun

[m1sspr0ject]

ask each child to bring in a plastic bottle not too big. now fill them with about 8 tablespoons of vinegar and then add 1 tablespoon of baking powder. It represents a volcano and with a dash of food colouring our kids loved it. i havent dont it in a while so maybe do a tester first to check on quantities .