This is an invitation to play with a craft theme. All of the materials are craft themed and it’s a perfect STEM activity for the young craft lover in your life.
I love using these invitations to play trays for getting my kids to interact in open-ended play. I pick a variety of elements to put in each section and then enjoy watching their creativity and imagination as they create and explore each section. They are a perfect way of introducing real-world engineering processes too.
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What to include in your craft STEM activity
You can use any item of interest for your kids and be sure to use items that are age appropriate. Here, we have included the following items for our play tray:
- Popsticks.
- Pom poms.
- Buttons.
- Craft sticks.
- Ribbon.
- Stickers.
- Paper.
- Tray with separate compartments.
How to play
The best part of this activity is that once you’ve filled your tray you can just hand it over. Then, your kids can play with it and the materials in any way that inspires them. I love that its open-ended and you can just watch their creativity flow. Here are some photos from their time playing with the items.
What did we do with our craft tray?
We had two extremes with this activity. One design was a very small flag inspired creation which you might even miss seeing if you blink once! While the other creation was a very long, snake inspired design complete with square landing sections in the middle. These designs may not seem overly memorable. However, they were learning important engineering skills during this activity which they can take forward in their future.
Conclusion
We had a fun time playing with our craft inspired invitation to play. What would you include on your tray?
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