We had an arts and crafts night in conjuction with our family event for our book fair. This was the first time it had ever been done. I purchased votive candle holders from Michael's for $4.00 a dozen which included the candle, purchased flat jewels from oriental trading and let the kids glue them on and they tied a ribbon around the holder. I also tried to have crafts that coordinated with our book fair theme. We made animals from brown paper lunch sacks. This was very popular with the younger kids. We had ribbon book marks with a cross charm on the end and some beads. We had fuzzy fish to color with markers. We had animals you could make from pasta shapes and pipe cleaners. We also did bracelets with plain beads and letter beads. We had plain wooden yo-yo's that the kids colored with markers which worked out ok and it wasn't as messy as painting them. I found the craft ideas from the crayola kit to be too complicated and time consuming. We decided on easier projects that took very little time and didn't cost a lot of money to make. We are a Catholic grade school (K-8) We had our 8th grade students in charge of each of the craft stations and this seemed to work out very well. The kids had a good time and the 8th graders earned community service hours.
kellyeraek boondogle is a series of weaving moves that uses a plastic type cording, I know around here it is coming back in and is geeting big with the 6th graders. You can get clips at you local craft store and make keychains, neckalces, etc. The cording isn't expensive at all! we are planning on doing it next month at our craft night. If you are looking for older kids crafts we do beading items and they love that, as well as spin art.
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
Originally posted by kelleyraek: Hey, Pals!
What's Boondoogle? We need help finding a good activity for the older students!!!
Kelley
Madison PTO
Mount Vernon, WA
As a former Girl Scout, I would call the closest council for the Girl Scouts. We did Boondoogle key chains, bracelets, etc. at meetings, on fieldtrips, and camping. It was great for 5-8th grade ages. We shared them with friends, and family. It was always a challenge. good luck
Something I did with a PreSchool craft station one time and I think it will definetly work with older ones as well was to take a bunch of leftover craft stuff from other projects put them all together and let the kids make whatever they wanted. I got all of the stuff from the teachers stashes. I just asked for whatever they had extra from prior crafts or stuff from the back of their closets. We wound up with great stuff, lunch bags for puppets, construction paper, cotton balls, pipe cleaners, beads, stamps, all sorts of stuff. Then the kids were just creating all sorts of stuff. They had a ball with no limits and no directions.
Decoupage is also a great, fun and super easy craft. You can use just about anything. Use colored tissue paper, tear it into pieces, use modgepodge (decoupage glue) on a brush to adhere the tissue to a box or a glass bowl, votive candle holder..anything! apply another light coat of the glue on top..let it dry..ta da!
You can decoupage photos on stuff too! Tons of possibilities...and its inexpensive [img]smile.gif[/img]
