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With so many things to fit into the school day, it might seem like craft projects are just “one more thing” to squeeze in if you have the time. In reality, the benefits of arts and crafts in kindergarten should make them an essential part of your weekly routine. In this post, I’m sharing some of the reasons why I love to use crafts in kindergarten, along with some tips for finding the time to do them.
There truly are countless reasons why crafts are such an important part of the kindergarten curriculum. Here are just five of my favorites:
Kindergarten students work hard all year long to improve their fine motor skills, hand strength, and coordination. Many students come to school having never held a pencil before! It’s important to help students develop these skills throughout the school year. When students have strong fine motor skills, they are able to focus more on the actual content of their learning activities instead of how to hold the pencil they’re using to fill them out.
Crafts are a fun way for students to practice these fine motor skills. As they cut, color, glue, and fold, students don’t even realize they’re hard at work! They are having too much fun creating an adorable craft!
It can be challenging for young learners to follow multi-step directions. Crafts can help students develop this skill! Since crafts usually need to be assembled in a particular order, students have to pay close attention to the step-by-step directions.
It also helps them practice waiting to hear the complete instructions before they get started. We’ve all had those students who take off on a task or project before they know exactly what they’re supposed to do. This usually results in having to pull out a fresh paper to start again! Crafts can help students get in the habit of waiting for the directions before they begin.
It seems like there is something that kindergarten students are eagerly anticipating during every season of the school year. They’re usually candy- or gift-filled holidays! Arts and crafts can help your students channel some of that seasonal excitement into a worthwhile activity.
There are so many fun seasonal crafts that you can do with your students! These crafts can double as bulletin board displays, parent gifts, or classroom decorations. Overall, crafts can help you acknowledge the upcoming holiday season while still keeping students engaged in a meaningful task.
Crafts don’t just have to be an art project! There are many ways that you can enhance your academic instruction with crafts.
For example, this cute pig craft is based on the book “If You Give a Pig a Pancake” by Laura Numeroff. Students are able to explore cause and effect, an important concept for reading comprehension, as they create an engaging pig craft.
Crafts can also enhance your science instruction! This 3D butterfly craft is a fun way for students to show off what they’ve learned about the butterfly life cycle.
You can even use crafts for math practice! Take this Johnny Appleseed craft as an example. Students can practice one-to-one correspondence as they create thumbprint apples on this fun craft. They can also write a sentence to go with it! These crafts are a fun way to decorate the classroom or a fall bulletin board!
There are some tasks that are more challenging for our young kindergarten students than others. Writing can be one of these challenging tasks! Crafts are a great way to motivate students to practice developing this skill.
Students love to publish their writing by creating a craft to go with it. For example, students can create a craft of their favorite character from Goldilocks and Three Bears to go with their writing assignment. These look great on a bulletin board! Publishing student work in this way helps increase motivation and confidence, because they’re always so excited to find their work hanging on a wall display.
For even more motivation to write, students can craft their own books! For example, this book about farmers is a fun way for students to share what they’ve learned. The lift-the-flap barn craft makes a perfect front cover for their writing pages!
Even though there are many benefits to using arts and crafts in kindergarten, it might seem daunting to find the time! From coming up with the ideas, to prepping the materials, to assembling the crafts, to cleaning up, it can feel like there is not enough time in the school day!
That’s where thematic units can come in handy! They are filled with meaningful literacy and math practice based on a cohesive theme for the week (or even two weeks). Each thematic unit also includes several opportunities to create crafts with your students. As mentioned earlier in the post, many of these crafts include practice for additional content areas. This means you’re getting MORE done in the time you spend crafting with your students!
To save you even more time, I’ve put together a bundle of kindergarten thematic units that will last you the entire school year! You’ll find seasonal themes that will coordinate to the skills that your students are ready to review by that point of the school year. Each unit also includes multiple crafts that your students can create.
Are you interested in saving time with these kindergarten thematic units and crafts? Just head over to the A Spoonful of Learning shop or my TPT store to take a closer look at everything included in this time-saving bundle!
Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find this post when you’re looking for crafts to use in kindergarten.
These alphabet books will have students dive deep into learning about each letter of the alphabet while eager to see what activity they get to complete next!
