Looking for simple crafts for kids? These are some of our absolute easiest, and themed for back to school!
At Ornament Shop, we love decorations so much that we come up with our own “do it yourself” ornaments! All of our DIY posts have a list of materials and pictures to walk you through each step of making the ornaments yourself.
Many of our DIY posts are so easy that kids can create their very own. I know parents and teachers love projects that can be completed with just a few supplies and some adult supervision, so check out this list of our best DIY ornaments for the classroom!
1. Fall Decorations That Highlight Color-Changing Fall Leaves
This fall decoration is perfect for a back-to-school project. If you’re teaching kids about how the leaves change colors and fall from the trees, use this ornament to them remember the lesson and decorate the classroom for autumn.
With just brown paint, confetti, a decorative ribbon, and clear glass balls found on our website, kids will have fun hanging their ornaments around the classroom and comparing each one’s differences.
2. Spooktacular Halloween Decorations for A Halloween Tree
This is a wonderfully magical project that I bet a class of kids would love to do for Halloween. Use our instructions to help gather the supplies, and kids can be as creative as they like. In the end, the class can hang their potions either on a spooky Halloween tree or around the classroom.
Using clear glass vials (commonly found in the jewelry section of craft stores), kids will create their own ingredients for potions. All you need to do is provide sticky labels and an assortment of little materials to fill the vials. These can be leftovers from any other craft you’ve done in the past, and includes confetti, beads, construction paper, glitter, string, feathers and food dye.
3. Random Acts of Kindness Can Grow a Tree!
This is another project that works great if there’s a tree in the classroom. A “random acts of kindness tree” is meant to show kids how doing good things for people adds up.
You can create ornaments a few different ways to hang from your class’s kindness tree. Colorful paper tags are easy to write on, and just need string. Clear glass ornaments can also be painted in addition to having the act of kindness written on them. Another idea that we’ve tried in a past DIY post for inspirational quote ornaments is to use wooden picture frames to frame the acts of kindness, then hang them on the tree.
4. Novel Idea for a Book Club Member or Book Worm
This one is a great craft project for English teachers. The only difficult part to this project might be sacrificing a few old books – sorry!
Have kids cut out their favorite lines from the books, and then combine those strips of paper with dollhouse-sized books that can be found online or in craft stores. Curl the strips of paper using a pair of scissors, and finalize it with a ribbon.
5. Showcase an Origami Swan Inside a Serene Environment
This one might be just a little advanced for some young kids, but if they show enthusiasm for learning origami, this makes a very pretty keepsake and can be customized for the origami animal each kid likes the most.
The only supplies needed are glass ball ornaments, acrylic paint, ribbon, clear string, and 2” square sheets of paper. We provide step-by-step folding instructions for the swan in this DIY ornament, but you can look up instructions for all kinds of animals and use the paint to fill the ball for the animal’s unique environment.
6. Sweet as Candy DIY Lollipop Felt Ornaments
Our lollipop ornaments are super sweet and simple! They make great gift toppers for birthdays, and children of all ages can make them with just a little adult supervision.
Supplies include colorful strips of felt, lollipop sticks, glue, glitter, ribbon, and a gift tag to attach a message. All the kids have to do is choose their favorite colors, and roll the strips of colors together to form the swirling lollipop. Then, the swirls can be rolled in glitter and glued to the lollipop stick. The gift tag can be used to say what flavor the lollipop is, or it can have any message the child wants!
Did you use any of our crafts with your kids? Tell us about it in the comments below!