Easy crafts for little hands

I cannot stress how important arts and crafts is for children and their emotional and physical well being. Toddlers learn a lot through art, crafts and messy play, it teaches us things about ourselves that we didn't know before, we can express our inner feelings in a why we wouldn't normally and children can learn about colours, numbers and co-ordination, as well as the satisfying act of making something, although often it's just about having fun.

Mr A and I love sunny days but it's also great to have a nice cosy raining day inside where we can focus on things like painting, making play-doe, building dens and baking.

Mr A's personal favourite is painting, he loves to mix colours and use the paint brushes, we love to do this together, I will draw the outline of a bus or a tree and he will have lots of fun colouring it in, recently though we have gone back to using finger paints as Mr A has discovered that putting it on your feet and slipping and sliding across the paper is a lot of fun. I also try to use all different kinds of brushes, rollers, potato prints etc so he has different textures to play around with. Another great thing to paint is natural objects such as sticks and pinecones, we made a lovely walking stick for Mr A this year, which he takes on his outdoor adventures.

Bringing the outdoors in and doing crafts with nature

Toddlers are different to older children though, their concentration span is far less and they don't always do well with long or complicated tasks - here are 5 easy and quick crafts to entertain your little ones.

1. Get out the paints and get involved - painting is fun at any age, don't be scared to get messy, wear old clothes and have fun.

2. Stick pasta shapes and make funny faces - all you need is some paper, glue, crayons and pasta and have fun making faces and animals out of the shapes - it's easy for little ones to do and is always a lot of fun.

3. Experiment with water and water beads - children love water so full up a bowl and get a few different size cups and a few animals to stick in the water and have fun pouring water from one cup to another. Also try playing with water beads - lots of fun for little ones.

4. Be a mini chef - why not try out a super easy recipe with your little ones, like the Easter cookies we did - all children love to bake, especially if its something sweet or a treat, it's also hugely satisfying both for parent and toddler to see the hard work come to

5. Make your own Play-doe, it's really easy and cheap and with some food colouring you can make an array of colours to play with.

For more play activities or to find the childcare solution that is right for you visit Care.com, who asked me to share mr A's playtime with you today.

Mr A playing with water beads