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Five Crafts for Kids for Ten dollars or less
- Emily Boyd
- Jul 19, 2019
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 15, 2020
The extra time in the summer can be a nice change of pace for you and your family. But how do you provide your children with meaningful, worthwhile activities without breaking the bank? Here are some inexpensive crafts for all elementary-age students. Read below to find five craft ideas for as cheap as ten dollars...or less!
I included amazon links, so you can easily purchase the materials online. They are cheaper in smaller quantaties in stores such as Walmart.
Salt Dough
Salt dough is a fun and simple activity that can be good for any age group. All you do is mix two cups of flour with one cup of salt and one cup of water. I sometimes will let each kid mix the dough for themselves. I will give them a plastic cup and a small Dixie cup then they can pour two Dixie cups of flour and one of salt and one of water.
Once the dough is made it can be played with like playdough or clay. Kids can make all sorts of sculptures. The dough will harden if left to dry overnight, or you can put it in a ziplock bag to keep it soft. You can paint the sculpture after its dried or color the dough before its dry by coloring dots with a marker or adding food coloring.
Materials: Flour, Salt, Water, Dixie Cup, Plastic Cup,
Starburst crayon art
This craft is great for kids in elementary school. Have the kids choose a few different color crayons. Then have the kids draw 5 small dots on a paper. The kids will draw small zigzags in one crayon color around each dot. Then they will get the next crayon and draw zigzags around the first crayon color. They continue with this pattern until they have rings around the dots from every color. The picture below shows how the craft looks at the end. You can also make the same pattern around a child's name.
Materials: Paper, Crayons
Keychains
There are so many different weaving patterns you can use to make keychains. If your child is enjoying it there are also ones you can do to make bracelets and belts. I will explain the simplest ones and add a few links to other kinds of weaves if your child is ready for the next step. For the simple kind, you take two colors of the special string shown below. Make an X with the two colors crossing each other. Then you take one color and cross each end to the opposite side, forming two hills. Then take the other color and have the ends cross over. As you cross over the place the string over the first hill you made and under the second.
Follow the video here if that wording was confusing for you or if you just want some extra information. I tell the kids they have to weave the pattern 10 times before they decide they do or do not like it, because it can be kind of tricky at first.
Materials: key chains and plastic Lace (get the set from amazon here)
Sticky note flipbook stories
This is a fun and simple activity. All you need is a pencil and either a packet of sticky notes or a small notebook. Have the students draw a small picture in the corner of the last page or first page. Then the kids simply draw the same small picture in a slightly different spot on the next page, and then again on the next and the next. When all the pages have the drawing, you should be able to flip the pages and it will look like an animation, where the drawing is moving.
Materials: Sticky notes
Homemade ice cube sidewalk chalk
All you need for this art project is popsicle molds, or even ice cube trays will work. Simply put food coloring in the water before you freeze it in the tray. When it's done freezing, you can use the ice like sidewalk chalk and draw pictures.
Materials: Popsicle molds, food coloring
I hope these activities provide fun and engaging projects for your kids this summer (that are also so cheap)!
Related Topics:
Easy crafts for kids
The flipbook art is easy for kids to do, but does take some patience. The starburst art project is also easy for kids, but younger kids can have a hard time filling up the page. Although all kids can participate in the process, the product will only look good if the kids can get the zig-zagged lines close together. The key chains are somewhat difficult to learn, but there are many simpler versions of weaving for preschool-aged kids. If your child is having difficulty, help them start with something simpler and work up to the keychain project.
Arts and crafts to do at home
All of these projects are simple, cheap and easy to do at home. Helping kids think creatively in the home is so important for learning. Craft projects are great ways to help kids develop fine and gross motor skills, practice problem solving, understand principles of art, and have creative space.
arts and crafts for preschoolers.
Most of the activities in this blog post can be done with preschool-age kids. Some of the activities will require more adult help than others. The salt dough craft, in particular, is both fun and easy for kids of all ages (but it is also a little messy). For ideas that are better for younger students, check out my blog about our Disney Summer Camp. There are lots of themed are projects that were fun for preschool-aged kids all the way to third grade. As well as links to many other activities for kids.
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Did you find this blog helpful? Check out a few of my other blogs for more activities for kids and ideas to keep education at home going throughout the summer.
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