Tips for Keeping Kids’ Crafts Clean and Organized
The benefits of getting your kids into arts and crafts from a young age have been vastly studied and at this point are plain. Engaging in creative activities such as painting, drawing and crafting, can have a positive impact their social, cognitive and emotional development, more specifically helping them to advance their visual processing skills, develop hand-eye coordination, and generally improve memory and focus. In other words, the crafts they do now, can affect the way they develop and ultimately learn later. So how do you ensure the best crafting experience possible for both the parent and the child. We have some tools and tips to keep your experience fun, mess-free and reoccurring.
Use the UNSTICK Arts & Crafts Sheet
This oversized sheet, which is both water repellent and heat resistant, acts as a barrier from your little ones’ messy art projects and the surfaces in your home. It’s washable, reusable and a practical addition to any child’s art station.
Compartmentalize everything
Instead of dumping a mess of googly eyes, crayons and glue sticks into a miscellaneous drawer, where they will be hard to find and ultimately forgotten or thrown away, use re-sealable baggies, storage bins and Tupperware containers, and make sure everything has a spot.
Make art supplies accessible
So long as your kids can find their craft supplies, they can use them; (and more importantly, they can put them away). Keep supplies within reach and clearly labeled. A great idea, if you have the wall space, is to mount a shelf right above their craft desk and keep their supplies in plain view.
Include space to display their work
Rather than laying freshly painted paper directly on the desk, where they can be knocked down, lost or ruined, why not display them on the wall. Hang string horizontally on a section of the wall near your child’s craft station and use clothespins to pin them up. This will create sort of a gallery of their work, in addition to keeping their work out of harm’s way.
Get your kids to help
Especially when it comes to cleaning up, make sure your kids know that they need to clean up their station before they can move on to another activity. Clearly label bins and drawers so that they can put things away themselves and teach them how to properly clean things like paint sets.
