I love to do crafty things. Over the years I have dabbled in painting, drawing, jewelry making, stencils, making home made soap and beauty products and more. Sadly, I don’t have as much time as I used to when it comes to doing something fun like crafting. By the time I get home from work I’m exhausted and the weekends are spent catching up on things I couldn’t get done all week (cleaning, blogging, running errands…).
For a while I didn’t get a chance to craft at all. Ever since I started my new position at my job (this past September) I get to craft on a daily basis with the kids I work with.
I work as a teacher’s assistant in a kindergarten program. Every day we read the kids a book and do a craft/project based on the book.
It’s not always that easy to find crafts to do, especially on the spur of the moment. Often my boss, the classroom teacher, has no clue what book he’s reading that day let alone a craft to go with it. We don’t always have the supplies we need to do some of the crafts we want to do either. I swear, the kids I work with go through glue sticks like crazy!
Thank goodness for Oriental Trading Company. Its my favorite place to shop for not only craft supplies, but also craft projects. They even offer crafts that contain everything you need to complete it. Those are my favorite kinds of crafts from Oriental Trading to use with the kids I work with. I LOVE having everything we need in neat, individual packages.
I love having several crafts on hand, and Oriental Trading offers so many to choose from. They have crafts for boys, girls, unisex and even adults.
Here are some of my personal favorites that we have utilized lately in our classroom.
Oriental Trading offers several Magic Scratch crafts. A Magic Scratch craft is something you use a small plastic “stick” (included) to scratch out a colorful design. There are so many designs to choose from including holiday, seasonal, superheros, dinosaurs, animals, religious symbols and more.
I picked out the Magic Color Scratch Superheroes for the kids that I work with. They are really into Marvel and DC superheroes. I knew they would go crazy for the superhero scratch off shapes.
The kids couldn’t get enough of these.
They are so simple to use. Simply use the plastic “stick” that comes with them to scratch off the back coating to review the bright colors underneath.
The kids had fun making their own superhero logos on their scratch off figures uniforms.
I plan on getting more of these for the kids. They were a fun project they could do at one of the classroom centers. We also have dinosaur scratch offs that I am saving for when we are into our dinosaur unit.
We do a lot of projects based on the different holidays and seasons. Now that it’s officially Spring time we were excited to share the Spring crafts from Oriental Trading with the kids.
Oriental Trading has A LOT of delightful spring crafts to choose from.
This “Ducky About Spring” craft turned out super cute. It was so easy for the kids to make too. All they needed to do was peel off the back of the foam pieces and put them together on the foam sign.
Each sign came as a “kit” with all the pieces you needed to make it. The kit even includes extra pieces. Some of the girls took the extra bows for the kite and the flowers to make a girl ducks. They turned out so cute!
Another fun and easy Spring craft the kids I work with had the opportunity to do recently was the Paper Plate Spring Bird’s Nest Craft Kit. This is another great, easy to do craft that requires nothing extra. Everything you need is included in the kit. All of the foam pieces have self-adhesive backs on them. The nest did require glue but we were able to get it all to stick with stick glue, so there was virtually no mess involved (liquid glue can get messy with 5-6 year olds).
The kids I work with (most especially the girls) love to make necklaces and bracelets out of beads.
I found a cute Geometric Shapes Necklace Craft Kit at Oriental Trading. Each individual kit comes with 10 big, colorful wood beads that are easy to string with the included 30″ cord.
What I love about this kit is that it comes with pieces for the end so you can open/close the necklace when you want to put it on or take it off. Most of the necklaces the kids make in our class either have to slide over their heads or they get tied on and have to get cut off because there is no other way to do it.
I had pictures of one of the kits, but I can’t find it. It looks like the image (below). You can mix/match the beads and design it any way you want.
Oriental Trading has a lot of jewelry craft kits to choose from including plenty of holiday/seasonal ones as well as kits for adults.
The most recent craft we did which came from Oriental Trading is the Stand-Up Easter Sign Craft Kit. Instead of using this one for a class project we used it at one of the activity centers. This craft was REALLY easy to make. So easy that the kids were done with in about three minutes, give or take.
It’s OK. We can always use fun things for the activity centers and the kids really enjoyed this one and couldn’t wait to take them home to show their families.
We still have one more craft to use with the kids which is perfect for Spring – Pom-Pom Caterpillar Note Holder Craft Kit.
We haven’t made this one yet, so I don’t have a photo of the finished product made by me or one of our kids. I can’t wait to make them. They are going to be so cute!
You don’t have to be a school teacher or teacher’s assistant to appreciate these fun craft kits for all holiday, seasons and every day fun. These kits are great for scouts, Girl Scouts, Sunday School, birthday parties, gifts for classmates and rainy day fun. The kits vary in size. Some are only a few kits where as others might have enough to make a dozen of the craft project. For my job I go with ones that have a dozen kits in one since we have 23 kids in our class (I order two sets).
You could always give away extra craft kits (they would make great handouts for Halloween!).
Oriental Trading Company is my favorite place to shop for not only crafts, but also supplies, home decor and my personal favorite – holiday decorations! Their prices are very affordable and I find that they ship pretty quick too.
If you would like to discover all the goodies available to you at Oriental Trading Company visit OrientalTrading.com. The links to their social media sites are found at the bottom of their website.
Check out Oriental Trading for fun summer time items too including Luau party supplies, outdoor games and activities and so much more.
Do you shop at Oriental Trading Company? If so, what is your favorite items to shop for?
Kimberly
*I received free products to review. There was no compensation. The opinions expressed are my own and not influenced in any way.