Have fun with one-year-olds! A collection of craft ideas featuring recommended January motifs
January is the season for crafts that let you enjoy the New Year atmosphere with children! One-year-olds love using their fingers and experiencing the feel of paint.
Here, we introduce craft ideas featuring January-specific motifs like kite flying, kagami mochi, and daruma.
Crumple and paste tissue paper, dab with stamps, or roll marbles around.
Each activity is something children can immerse themselves in and thoroughly enjoy.
Savor the lingering New Year spirit while enjoying seasonal crafts with the kids! Since the children’s creations are treated as artworks, the term is written as “seisaku” (制作) in the text.
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Have fun with one-year-olds! A collection of craft ideas featuring recommended January motifs (1–10)
Let’s make a big Christmas tree!
This is an idea where you put a big Christmas tree made from construction paper on the wall and let the children freely decorate it with ornaments.
Since it’s for infants (0-year-olds), please prepare the ornament bases in advance by cutting them out of construction paper.
Let the children draw on the bases with crayons or stick on stickers to create lovely ornaments.
Once the ornaments are finished, decorate the tree with them! If you prepare bases in a variety of motifs, the tree will look even more festive.
Oden that can also become a wall!
Here’s a craft project for making oden that even toddlers can do, and it can also be used for wall displays! First, let’s make the oden shop.
Cut colored construction paper into a face shape, then draw or glue on the oden shopkeeper’s facial features.
For very young children, prepare the face parts in advance.
Apply glue to the head area and stick on yarn hair piece by piece.
It’ll be fun to have yarn in various colors.
Next, let’s make the oden ingredients.
Stamp the konnyaku pattern using a cotton swab, make lots of your favorite ingredients, and then glue them onto colored construction paper of your choice to finish!
Make oden together with adults! From 0-year-old children
This is a craft activity where you stick oden ingredients made from construction paper onto a paper plate.
Depending on age, children can enjoy mainly sticking on pre-made pieces, or they can cut construction paper with scissors, draw patterns, and make the ingredients themselves.
The examples shown here include konnyaku, mochi-filled pouches, and kelp rolls.
There are many other classic oden ingredients too, so it would be fun to freely create them with construction paper.
It’s an idea that excites viewers as well, as they can see what kind of oden each child has made.
Have fun with 1-year-olds! A collection of craft ideas featuring recommended January themes (11–20)
Made with sponge stamps! Fun oden
Using sponge stamps, we’ll create patterns for oden ingredients.
For example, for konnyaku, if you press a coarse-textured sponge or a sponge with raised bumps onto a triangle-cut piece of gray construction paper like a stamp, you can make the konnyaku’s speckled texture.
In the same way, using a sponge with carved grooves will make the daikon’s striations, and a sponge with fine cuts can create the wavy, mottled pattern of fish cakes.
Once your oden ingredients are ready, paste them onto construction paper cut into the shape of a pot to complete your oden hot pot!
Kagami mochi made with whipped paint
When you think of big events in January, New Year’s comes to mind.
How about drawing a three-dimensional kagami mochi decoration for the New Year? If you use a technique called whip paint, you can create fluffy, three-dimensional pictures.
Mix liquid glue and shaving foam well.
The key is to mix until stiff peaks form, just like when you whip cream.
Gently apply the whip paint onto your kagami mochi sketch.
If you press too hard, the whip will get squashed, so the trick is to place it down as you paint.
You can also add color to the whip with paint.
Besides kagami mochi, try making pictures in various colors with the kids!
Henshin Mitten
How about making a “transforming mitten” craft in January to feel warm and cozy during the cold winter? Because it’s a highly flexible project, it’s also great for nurturing children’s imagination.
First, stack two sheets of colored construction paper, cut out a mitten shape, and glue them together.
Next, prepare origami with various patterns, cut out your favorite shapes, and stick them onto the mitten! You can freely arrange different patterns on each side, or add animals and characters.
It might be easier to make if you prepare larger mittens in advance so children can put their hands inside.
Ema made with drawing paper
As a uniquely Japanese custom, there are ema—wooden plaques on which people write their wishes to the gods.
New Year’s is a great opportunity for children to experience such traditions, so why not try making handmade ema? All you need to do is cut construction paper into the shape of an ema and decorate it with that year’s zodiac animal! If two-year-olds are participating, they can add patterns around the zodiac with finger stamps.
To finish, punch a hole at the top of the ema and thread a string through—it’s done.
You can also use them as January wall decorations, so display the children’s creations and get through the cold season with warm hearts!