Arts and crafts are a common preschool activity that most young children love. There’s more to sitting a child down with construction paper, glue, and a project idea however. Learning arts and crafts have a range of benefits for your children, and can help them in other aspects of their life. Here are just a few of the ways crafting can benefit preschoolers.
Builds Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills are important at every stage of life. Through crafting, preschoolers can learn how to cut, tape, glue and color their crafts. These skills are all ones they will use later in life. The same fine motor skills that are needed to apply a crystal to a foam crown are the ones need to grasp a pencil or write a letter.
Boosts Critical Thinking Skills
After the project has been cut out, what comes next? Assembling crafts is a great way to learn how to think ahead and solve problems. Critical thinking skills are another skill children will use their whole lives but will be especially useful when they’re solving word problems in elementary school.
These basic skills can be developed with something as simple as figuring out how to put together a craft.
Learning Shapes and Colors
A big part of crafting is choosing the colors you want your project to be, or discovering how shapes can be combined to make new things. As children are introduced to these new things during craft time, they can learn the names that go with them.
Learning that two triangles can be put together to make a diamond gives them the word for those shapes. Learning how to ask for the red crayon helps them learn those colors.
Counting and Patterns
Shapes and colors aren’t the only thing kids learn about while doing crafts. Stringing a beaded necklace for example, can teach children how to make patterns. It’s also a great opportunity to practice counting. When kids do crafts, they are frequently exposed to counting and patterns.
These opportunities to learn will help them build basic math skills they will need later in life.
Builds Confidence
When a project unfolds beautifully, it makes a child feel good about their skills. A well-made craft, or even one that’s a bit wobbly but still beautiful in your eyes, is a huge confidence boost for children. On top of this, being allowed to work with tools that are normally kept out of reach, such as scissors or glue, helps them learn how to use these items in a safe way.
Crafting is fun and engaging for children, but it’s also useful for them. The skills they learn when making simple projects will help them develop fine motor skills, learn basic math and critical thinking skills, and help them learn to follow instructions.
These skills will help them all the way into their adult life. The next time you put together a piece of Ikea furniture or create an advanced craft of your own, you’re using some of those skills you learned with your first craft in preschool.
