Collaborative post
Do your kids love crafts and activities that involve doing something creative with their name? It’s a real favourite with my two!
As well as being lots of fun, personalising a child’s creation with their name is a great way to make lovely homemade gifts for friends and family. You’ll also be helping your little ones develop their fine motor skills and flex their creative muscles.
Here are my favourite crafts and activities that you can incorporate your child’s name into.
Easy name crafts and activities for kids
Handprints, footprints and fingerprints
These are a lovely way to keep a record of your children as they grow, and it’s easy to add your child’s name to each print. Paint is our favourite way to do these, but if you’d like to limit the mess you can draw around hands or feet on colourful card, then let the kids cut them out and decorate them. Make sure any paint you use is non-toxic, and cover any precious surfaces before you start!
Name jewellery
My kids love using letter beads to create personalised jewellery. Threading beads onto string is brilliant for practising fine motor skills and letter recognition too. We often start with their names, then go on to make bracelets and necklaces for friends. If you’ve got a lot of names to tackle, custom silicone wristbands from Lancaster Printing are great for things like party bag gifts.
Stamps
Using rubber stamps is another fab way to create personalised name artwork. Using ink pads in a variety of colours will create a lovely bright effect. You can make the name stamp the star of the show, or use stamps to add a child’s name to a piece of their artwork.
Grow a name
How about a fun grow-your-own name activity? All you need is a container of compost and some fast-growing seeds; grass works really well, but you could also try cress for an edible name. The aim is to sow your seeds in letter shapes, so that when they grow they spell out the name. It helps if you make an outline of the letters in the compost before you start – sand is ideal for this – and you will probably need to help young children. Don’t worry if the letters get a bit messy, you can always tidy the seeds up a bit at the end. Once you’ve sown your seeds, children can water their container and watch their name grow!
Another great garden name activity is to grow a name in a courgette. This sounds a bit random, but it’s super quick and easy, and my kids absolutely love doing it. Obviously you need a courgette plant that is producing courgettes, so this is definitely a late spring / early summer activity. Use a toothpick, skewer or other pointy implement (not too pointy with kids around though) to gently scratch your name into a small courgette that’s still attached to the plant. And that’s it: as the courgette grows, the name gets bigger, and if you let it turn into a marrow you’ll end up with a huge name!
Letter tiles
If you’ve got a word game in the house, put the kids to work on a name session. The abundance of letter tiles means you can spell out lots of names, we always end up covering the whole family plus the cat as a minimum!
Bake a name
Another edible activity, this time using icing to write names onto cakes or buns. You’ll need piping bags for this, and you may need to help out to make sure the letters are reasonably neat. Just don’t expect to be allowed to eat anything other than your own named treat!
What are your favourite name crafts and activities for kids?
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