It's fair to say that parenting is always something of a juggling act, and never has that been more apparent than over the course of the last year.
With more parents than ever before finding themselves trying to balance their work and home lives, whilst also home schooling for months at a time- the struggle has been real!
As a busy work-from-home parent running two businesses, whilst also home educating my children full time - I know that struggle all to well. I'd be lying if I said that I always feel as though I'm getting that balancing act right, and I often find myself battling against feelings of guilt - worried that I'm not able to dedicate as much time as I'd like to fun activities with my children.
Sure we spend lots of time together doing educational activities, but I often feel that it comes at the expense of simple one-on-one bonding time where we can just do something fun together.
My children love to craft and I've lost count of the number of times they've asked me to have a crafting afternoon with them, only for me to end up stressed out because A) I'm not a natural crafter and B) it's so hard to find the time for long and intricate craft activities when I have deadlines and tasks hanging over me.
But this year I've made a conscious effort to turn that around, as the benefits of crafting with children are actually pretty huge!
The Many Benefits Of Crafting With Children
*Improved Hand/Eye Co-Ordination - the more children take part in craft sessions, the more they hone their hand-eye co-ordination skills as well other skills such as fine manipulative and fine motor skills.
*Educational Benefits - The educational benefits of crafting are many and varied, including helping with color and shape recognition, counting skills, and as home educators we also like to tie craft sessions in with various topics to help children learn about subjects such as history, space, dinosaurs and many others.
*Bonding - Crafting can be a very calming experience and when undertaken by a parent and child can provide a wonderful bonding experience as you sit together and discuss your projects.
*Improves Self-Esteem - Allowing children to take control of their project will help to grow their independent decision making and increase their self-confidence, while crafting achievements and completion of projects helps to encourage self esteem in children.
*Enhances social skills and self expression - Time spent chatting about their projects and using descriptive words to explain their process will help to encourage language and social skills in children, while crafting also provides opportunity for children to express their thoughts and feelings through the medium of art.So How Can I Enjoy The Benefits Of Crafting As A Time-Poor Parent?
Thankfully I found the perfect solution when I discovered Baker Ross - a crafting website who not only stock all of the craft supplies you could ever need at very reasonable prices, but also produce some wonderful easy-to-use crafting kits ideal for busy parents like me!
The kits contain everything you need to make fun and engaging crafts that kids will love, but that don't take lots of time and effort on the part of the parent!
The sets often use stick-on pieces so that mess isn't an issue, and the instructions are always so simple to follow - they are the ideal 5 minute craft activity and my kids are always really impressed with them!
One of the things I love most about the craft kits is that often include at least 3 makes per kit, making it ideal for someone like me with 3 children - they're usually really cost-effective too!
There are so many different activities to choose from - from seasonal crafts to everyday ones, from painting to sewing and so much more.
Take a look below to see some of our recent favourites!
Some Of Our Favourite Activities
Daffodil Making
With Spring in the air, we were excited to set about making our very own daffodils and the Baker Ross Daffodil craft kit gave us everything we needed!
The tissue paper was even pre-folded for ultimate time-saving ease, with stick on foam leaves so we didn't even need to get messy with glue - this was a really fun and easy activity, ideal for a busy afternoon!
Cross-Stitch
I'd been meaning to show the children how to cross-stitch for a while now as it's something I remember really enjoying at school, but sourcing the materials (and, to be honest, even finding the time to do so!) was something that I just kept putting off - so the cross-stitch kit from Baker Ross was ideal!
It gave us everything we needed for my 3 children to get started with cross-stitch practice and it's something we've all really enjoyed.
Bracelet Making
My daughter & I had so much fun making matching charm bracelets together, it was a lovely bonding experience as we sat together, made bracelets for each other and chatted about our designs and where we might wear our bracelets together.The hand/eye co-ordination and fine manipulative skill development opportunities involved with beading and threading are great for little ones, and my daughter loves having something she can keep and use after a crafting session. I highly recommend the mermaid charm bracelet kit!
Candle Making
My son has been asking to have a go at making his own candles for a while now but I just knew that I'd find the process of making wax candles too tedious so I was delighted to find this kids candle making kit.
The set includes a variety of wax colours, enough to make up to 15 candles. The wax becomes mouldable when softened from hand heat, enabling children to form their own intricate candle creations - we had so much fun with this and it was such an easy but lovely craft!
I'm so glad to have found a solution to my crafting woes! Now whenever my little ones decide they'd like to have a craft session, I have the Baker Ross kits right on hand so I can say yes without the stress!
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