8 CREATIVE WAYS TO PLAY WITH CRAYONS AND PAPER

Design paper airplanes

Help your little one become a grown-up pilot by encouraging them to design and build their very own plane. You could even have competitions on whose plane can fly the furthest, or create mini landing strips out of pillows to land on - just make sure to establish ground rules about only throwing them in the opposite direction of anyone else.

Make mazes or puzzles

Spending a rainy day with your kids? Draw puzzles or mazes for each other to solve. There are plenty of examples online, or simply use your imagination to create your own!

Decorate their bedroom

Let your little one’s creativity shine by decorating their bedroom with paper chains. To start, cut out equal strips of paper in the shapes of long rectangles. Create the first ‘loop’ by joining each side of the rectangle with a little bit of glue (a pritt stick will be fine). Once you have one sturdy ring, thread another strip of paper through the center of the loop. Now, join each end of the second strip together with a little glue and voila, you’ve started your paper chain. 

For this activity you can use either coloured card, letting your child choose their favourite colours, or provide them with plain, cut out rectangles to decorate with crayons as they wish.

Create a butterfly garden

With any leftover coloured card from your paper chains, why not create beautiful butterflies. Cut out two wing-shaped pieces, a long strip for the centre of its body, and let your child decorate the wings. Giving them the option of which colours to use will help to develop their creativity.

Make a book of the alphabet

This one is great for children currently learning the alphabet, or for any younger infants who are starting to use their words. Start with your first piece of paper and write the letter A. Let your little one either choose an object/place/animal which also begins with the letter A and draw it. Go through the alphabet imagining all the different words, and you’ll end up with your own alphabet learning book.

Go hunting for treasure

Go hunting with your child to find all sorts of treasures to make patterns with – leaves, coins, twigs, you name it! Lay a piece of paper over the top of your treasure, and have your child lightly rub the crayon over the object. The patterns and textures on your treasure will show through like magic.

Giant dot to dot

Throw a large piece of paper down on the floor and create a large dot to dot. It doesn't have to create a perfect shape in the end, your child will simply enjoy crawling across the floor finding numbers. If you have a toddler who wants to join in, simply use stickers or draw large circles for them to join up instead of numbers. Not only will your little one find this a fun and interactive game, it’s a great activity to help develop their fine and gross motor skills.

Become abstract artists

Warning: this one gets messy! We’d recommend going outside, or placing down newspaper to protect your flooring.

Glue some crayons to a piece of paper and let them dry. (Make sure to glue them on the crayon wrapper, not the wax.) Lean the paper against something so the crayons can melt down the paper. Hold a hair dryer an inch or so away and watch the crayons melt into a beautiful rainbow - perfect for your next piece of art to hang on the fridge!