After School Craft Ideas to Keep the Kids Busy

I’m hot off the heels of a seriously epic summer of crafting with my five-year-old. Crafting was so enthralling for my daughter that she willingly exchanged TV time for more crafting time. So what’s the secret?

Crafting, but make it fun.

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Now that school is back in session, you may be looking for after-school programs and other ways to entertain your kiddo. Here I’ll share with you some of the fun craft ideas we did this summer and how you can adopt them for after-school activities, school breaks, or fun family-themed nights.

Craft Ideas for Kids

Start With Good Supplies

When you head to the dollar store or even Costco, start thinking like a kid. What makes for good crafts? You’d be surprised at the little junky things that start as garbage and turn into masterpieces.

Some good ideas to get your craft stockpile going include:

• Cardboard boxes (shoe boxes, supply boxes retail stores)
• Feathers (craft feathers or boa feathers)
• Sticks, leaves, moss from trees (bonus: this gets the kids outside to gather! Just keep the buggy stuff outdoors for patio crafting)
• Foam or felt
• Glitter glue in multiple colors
• Markers in every color (if you can find color-changing markers then your kids will ooh and ahh for hours)
• Printer paper
• Ribbon, jute string, or yarn
• Gemstone stickers
• Cotton balls and pads, Q-tips, and paper towel tubes
• Tidbits and knick-knacks – perhaps leftovers from birthday parties

Inspiration is Everywhere

Sometimes filling the hot afternoons is made fun just by a trip to the store for inspiration and supplies. We must have bought about a dozen little wooden ‘treasure chests’ at the dollar store so she could take them home to paint, color, or decorate. Then, she can save trinkets inside. Crafting starts with inspiration, and those trips to the store can be a fun way to break up the doldrums.

My daughter made some outrageous crafts this summer – the wildest being her shoe box replica of Gabby’s Dollhouse. It had multiple rooms, an elevator, a slide, and we even found wooden Gabby’s Dollhouse characters to stick inside. She worked on it for days.

Her summer camps sent her home with flying contraptions, toilet paper roll crafts, and she even made a “water park” with all recycled materials.

For super little kids, take a big paper bag from the grocery store and turn it into a robot suit. They can cut and color it, and it’s tons of fun!

Moving up the ranks from paper to cardboard, the bigger the box, the larger the imagination can reach. We made a drive-in car with a colored dashboard, popped in some ‘headlights’ with battery-operated tea lights, and made a steering wheel with a paper plate and a pencil. Then, the next weekend, we used the same box and turned it into a pirate ship with Jolly Roger flags!

Theme Night Crafts

Theme nights are a big deal in my household. Whether it’s our recent Bon Voyage dinner party for travelers about to embark on a long vacation, or country-specific theming like Mexican Nights and Japanese Nights, we go all out.

More creatively, when it’s just me and my daughter, and my husband is away for work, we spend our long weekend days crafting HARD in anticipation of an evening movie night. Recent movie night themes we crafted include:

• A night at the drive-in movies (we watched Grease and built a cardboard car)
• Pirates of the Caribbean Marathon (yarrr, the car became a boat ye see)
• Kung Fu Panda marathon (we made paper Chinese lanterns)
• Miss Congeniality Beauty Pageant (we dressed in ball gowns and performed our artful talents, which also included a crafted Q&A section – hint: we all want world peace)

Other theme nights we have had included dressing like our favorite book, red, white, and blue theme night for 4th of July, and a special celebration we like to hold called the ‘belt color party’ for every time she gets a new belt color in Taekwondo. Everything at the table has to be that color, and she gets little gifts from the dollar store in that color, too.

When prepping for a themed movie night or dinner party, it’s all about the table setting. Kids can make things like banners, menus, place cards, paper placemats, or they can get into the decorating, too. We put out trinkets that have to do with the theme and match tablescapes as well.

For instance, for our Asian themed nights, we put out bento plates, bamboo placemats, chopsticks, and all of our little sauce bowls that we picked up in our travels overseas.

Print out templates online for things like Jolly Roger flags for pirate nights, or make paper hats.

After School Crafting

Just because it isn’t a special occasion doesn’t mean it’s not crafting time! For our after-school craft zone, I had to put an activity spin wheel together so it wouldn’t be craftmania all over again.

Pro-tip: Don’t be afraid to save yourself time by finding online printable templates for projects, including a spin wheel.

The spin wheel is a great back-to-school craft to get the kids involved with – they can cut, color, and help to decide what goes on the spin wheel. Maybe it’s chores, maybe it’s activities – tailor it to your household needs.

Don’t forget to utilize take-home crafts, too. We get them all the time from our local library, and they use up a good 30 minutes or more to do. Teachers love to send these home for after-school projects, so get involved!

My mom helped my daughter make an epic diorama. This “dinosaur kingdom” was complete with dino toys, outside foliage, cotton balls, and a ton of epic imagination (there were asteroids, volcanoes, and gnarly dino-on-dino attack scenes).

RELATED: Dinosaur Activities in Orlando

Start An Art Gallery

When art comes home from school, we’ve made a habit over the years to string it up in the back window to showcase the best of the best.

We rotate the art and even have an easel in the dining room displaying occasional canvas art that comes home, too.

At the end of our over-the-top summer of crafting, I accumulated so many crafts from her summer camp at the zoo and science center to our craft-stravaganzas that I honestly didn’t know what to do with them.

So, naturally, we held an event for my family – A Night at the Gallery.

All guests had to dress like an artsy uptown socialite or beatnik, we listened to The Beatles, and we perused my daughter’s art around the house. The art was broken up into several varying exhibits, from mixed media art to coloring pages to her favorite exhibit – the “glow exhibit” in the bathroom.

Of course, the art was the highlight of the experience, which led to an art-themed dinner. 

The Art of It All

All I am getting at here is – art is not just busy work, it can be a real experience. Let your kids get creative. Set aside a craft zone and a supply area, and let them enjoy moments of madness.

Art is our way of self-expression, so I say LET THEM MAKE ART! Whatever that means to your kiddo, go after it and support the fun by joining in.

More creative learning ideas can be found in our guide to cultural activities in Orlando.