Kids crafts are one of the most common activities that adults do with children.
Moms, Dads, preschool and nursery school teachers, doting grandmas and aunts
make crafts with their kids as a way of spending quality time together often based around holidays

Everyone knows that kids love to color and paint and since it is really hard to get many children to concentrate for long periods of time on any activity, crafts is the perfect  way to fill that time.

The big problem here is that adults want a realistic looking project. Young children, however, are usually not ready to create their own realistic projects, so impatient adults create them and have the children copy them. I call this “copycat crafts”.

If you are a real traditional sort and have no problem with creating robots out of your children then go right ahead and keep doing these kinds of crafts. There are tons of them to be found, especially all over the web
if so it will be a cinch to find tons of tradtional crafts projects to do with kids.

Crafts that are copycat are very detrimental to kids and you should take a minute to hear why. You can also go download a free report  that will help you with all kid crafts by explaining to you in detail the pros and cons of copycat crafts and educational crafts.

So how is it that crafts can make kids into robots? By not allowing them to solve any of their own problems when doing crafts. Once I explain it, you will understand why it is that tradtional arts and crafts are so wrong for children.

Arts and crafts should not only be used to remember the holidays. It should definitely be a wonderful, enriching expereince for the kids and at the same time they should be gaining skills as well.

When working with crafts in an educational format, kids learn thinking skills plus develop greater initiative and self esteem.

Many art proponents tout the fine motor skills children are gaining by doing arts and crafts, that however, is all that they are probably getting in copycat crafts.

I have a great post for you that gives a great example of creativity in art by showing you how children can make a crafts activity of flowers using both methods.

There are so many art opportunities during the year but, many adults only stick to holiday time.

And now what do we do?
If you like the idea of adding more creativity to kids crafts you can check out  Educational arts and crafts which will give you lots of crafts for kids to do that are truly educational.

If you want to try doing educational crafts on your own, however, and not copycat crafts  then there 4 points  to keep in mind when choosing a crafts for your children.

1.    Does this activity allow for any problem solving?
2.Is there any thought that can be put into this project?
3.    Where’s the creativity here?
4.    Will my child feel good about him/herself after doing this craft?

If you keep these thoughts in mind when choosing crafts then not only will you be commemorating the holidays and spending quality time with your children but they also will be gaining vital skills