Teaching young children to be hands-on is one of the many important lessons you can teach. Apart from making them channel their creative energies into something worthwhile, making your child use their hands to come up with something from scratch, shows them the values of patience and perseverance in addition to saving you a lot of money.
You save money you would otherwise spend if, for example, your child can decorate their own bedroom or fabricate their own toys. You should, however, regard their safety before they start on any projects. Below are some DIY projects for your kids.
Origami
Origami is the art and science of folding paper into intricate designs and shapes. Often believed to have originated in Japan with the word ‘origami’ being an amalgamation of ‘ori’ meaning ‘to fold’ and ‘kami’ which is the Japanese word for paper. It involves the use of hands to roll, fold and sculpt a plain piece of paper (origami paper) into a decorative work of art. The distinctive feature that differentiates origami from other paper crafts is that unlike the rest, no cutting or gluing is involved in origami.
Your kids stand to benefit a lot from learning origami. Not only does origami improve their dexterity and motor skills but it also exercises their brain.
They can start with simple models like boxes and paper planes and gradually progress to the more complex ones like origami owls and other animals. Search the web for more information on the instructions and the items you can model with origami.
Cooking
Cooking with your kids helps them adopt healthy cooking and eating habits. You should have your children help you in the kitchen. However, under no circumstances, you should ever leave babies alone in the kitchen. Older children, especially teenagers, can be taught how to cook with minimal supervision.
For their own safety, you should not let them climb stools to get items off the shelf. Make sure you give them a kitchen table to work from if the kitchen counter is too tall. Pre-measure for them each ingredient to avoid accidental mix-ups. Teach them the nutritional value of each ingredient and the sequence in which they should be added to get the best results.
Painting, pottery, and decorations
Kids love color. Let them play around with colors. Involve your kids in choosing the color schemes of their bedrooms, and if they are old enough, you can have them paint and decorate it themselves. Appropriate personal protective equipment must be worn since the fumes from some of the paints can be harmful to your children.
If they have shown promise and interest in drawing and painting, buy for them pencils, paints, and canvass to paint and draw on. This improves their creativity and nurtures their talents. Encourage them to start an art project, be it a drawing of the family pet or painting of your home and finish it.
Instead of enrolling them for pottery classes, buy them clay to use at home.
