[Childcare] Fun craft ideas and craft activities perfect for summer
Summer is full of fun events at daycares and kindergartens! With water play, festivals, and fireworks events, children really get a feel for the season.
Here, we’ll introduce craft ideas recommended for summer.
You can make all sorts of things like colorful fireworks, delicious-looking shaved ice, beautiful morning glories, and cute beach sandals.
These activities let you enjoy the summer atmosphere through crafting, so please use them as a reference! Some projects use unique techniques, so be sure to make fun summer memories together with the children.
Since the works created by children are regarded as artworks, the term “seisaku” (制作) is used in the text.
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[Childcare] Fun craft ideas and craft activities perfect for summer (141–150)
Blurry Painting Ice Cream
When you think of summer, it’s the perfect season for delicious ice cream.
Let’s express the sweet ice cream that kids love using a wet-on-wet painting technique.
For preparation, cut white drawing paper into circles.
Then lightly moisten them with water.
Have the children drop their favorite paints onto the paper and enjoy watching the colors bleed and spread.
If there are too many colors, they may blend too much during the bleeding process and not finish neatly, so it’s best to limit the number of colors in advance.
Once the ice cream circles are dry, stick them onto a cone—and it’s done! Enjoy making original ice cream art with the children.
Sunflower Field Stamp
Why not make sunflower stamps that bloom with energy even on hot days? First, align the tips of about ten cotton swabs and bundle them with a rubber band.
Next, cut many 5 mm slits down to about one-third of a toilet paper roll, then flare them out.
Apply yellow paint to the flared section and stamp repeatedly on drawing paper, imagining sunflower petals.
Dab brown paint onto the bundled cotton swabs to stamp the seed center, and put green paint on your finger to stamp the leaves.
That’s it! The steps are simple, so even younger children can enjoy this activity.
It’s also fun to try a variety of colors.
A Stroll by the Sea with the Boing-Boing Jellyfish
Jellyfish that swim all jiggly and fluffy are so cute, aren’t they? Let’s make a craft themed around those adorable jellyfish taking a stroll through the sea! To capture that jiggly jellyfish feel, it’s best to add a mechanism that creates movement.
After drawing a jellyfish on construction paper, attach an accordion-folded strip of paper behind it to act like a spring.
That way, when you touch it, the jellyfish will wobble and jiggle, making it fun for kids.
Around the jellyfish, draw fish and seaweed or add origami pieces to create a lively ocean scene.
When coloring the jellyfish, use paints with extra water to bring out their translucent look!
Colorful ice pop
Chilled popsicles are perfect for hot summer days! Let’s make a cute popsicle wall decoration that will spark kids’ appetites.
It’s recommended to use construction paper in various colors to create colorful popsicles.
Then decorate them by sticking on small pieces of paper, scraps, stickers, and stamps.
You’ll end up with fun, festive-looking popsicles! It’s also a great idea to combine red and green paper to make a watermelon bar.
watermelon
Watermelon, the quintessential summer fruit that many people say they “absolutely eat every year once summer arrives!” Its distinctive look—so iconic that the green-and-red combo instantly brings watermelon to mind—also makes it an easy motif to craft.
You can make one simply by sticking red construction paper onto green and drawing the seeds.
There’s also a way to create a watermelon-inspired paper fan decoration by accordion-folding origami paper, so be sure to look up the method and give it a try.
watermelon lantern
When it comes to fruits that symbolize summer, watermelon surely comes to mind.
Its vivid red and green look also boosts that feeling of summer.
Here’s a craft that fuses an essential summer watermelon with the lanterns that brighten summer festivals.
The key is layering green construction paper over red, so that the red peeks through from inside the green, evoking a watermelon.
Make slits in the green paper and shape it so the inner red shows through.
If you add black stripes and black seeds, it will look even more like a watermelon.
Roll the paper into a cylinder with a hollow center, attach a handle, and your lantern is complete.
Placing a light inside is also recommended.
Drawing with the scratch technique
Instead of drawing on paper with crayons, try the scratch technique, where you create a picture by scratching the surface.
First, randomly color a sheet of drawing paper with various colors of crayon.
Then cover the entire surface with a solid layer of black crayon.
Once that’s done, use a toothpick or a bamboo skewer to scratch away the black and draw your picture.
The colors you applied first will appear, revealing a colorful image against the black background.
This method is perfect for drawing fireworks in a dark night sky, but it’s also great for summer flowers or sea creatures.
Give the scratch technique a try and challenge yourself with all kinds of pictures!