“I’m Bored!”
If you’re a parent, it’s a guarantee that you’ve heard this about 7.5 million times from your kid, and that’s just on a good Saturday, right? Ha! As a mom of five, I understand!
A few weeks ago, my kiddos had a day off school, bless their hearts. By 2 in the afternoon, the youngest Isaac was getting restless. I know from experience that I needed to stage an intervention before the kids began to riot. Maybe this only happens in my family, but I’m guessing not. The problem with staging an intervention is that we as parents have to put on our creative hats to come up with something that’s a better solution than arguing with siblings presents.
I’ve been enjoying my Craft Destash project challenges for the last few months, so I thought that I may be able to tap into Isaac’s creative and competitive nature and give him a challenge as well. Thus, the Kids Craft Challenge was born. I made it a really fun, really big deal for him. He loves the cooking show Chopped so I staged his challenge similarly. I dug through my craft supplies, and put three items in a mystery box for him. Then, I pulled out any other items I didn’t mind him using and put them on a table.
He had to open the box, and was required to use all three things in the box, as well as anything in my craft supplies that I had pulled out for him. The difference in the kids challenge and Chopped is that there wasn’t a maximum time limit, only a minimal one! See what I did there? He wasn’t allowed to finish in 2 minutes. He had to work on his project for at least 15 minutes and could go for as long as he needed to.
In his first box was a piece of wood, white craft paint, and buttons.
He worked hard!
He put so much thought into his project and was happy doing it. I was able to work at the table with him (you can see the wood & screen there I was working on for my farmhouse frame project). But if I would’ve needed to be making lunch or cleaning the house while he created, I would’ve been able to because he was so occupied. Of course, keep your supervision of any type of craft projects age appropriate. You’d never leave a very little one alone with items that could be unsafe with them.
I love his final creation. It’s a perfect little leprechaun painted on the wood. He used white for the clouds, and the buttons for the leprechaun’s coat.
When he was finished, he carefully lined up all the supplies he used to show me his creativity, and I’d say he did a good job!
Was is messy? Yep, a bit!
Was it totally worth it? Absolutely!
If you’d like to set up your own Kids Craft Challenge, here are some items that would be fun to use:
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- A box to be the “mystery items box”
- Smock or old shirt to protect clothing
- Disposable tablecloth or cardboard to protect your work space
- Paint (craft or watercolor)
- Brushes
- Glitter
- Buttons
- Glue
- Salvaged pieces of wood or poster board
- Scissors
- Markers
- Crayons
- Pipe cleaners
- Googly eyes
- Construction paper or scrapbook paper
- Fabric scraps
You’ll be amazed at what your child can create!
