Are you looking for craft ideas for first graders? Crafts are a great way to get your littles working on fine motor skills while incorporating what you are learning in class! One of my favorite ways to work crafts into our routine is with writing craftivities. This way we can work on writing standards while including a fun craft project! Double bonus, these make great hallway displays or bulletin board decor! Check out these craft ideas for first graders below!
Each craftivity kit comes with 5 different crafts, multiple writing prompts, blank writing pages for you to create your own prompts, and all of the needed craft pieces. If you want, you can spruce the crafts up with any crafting supplies you have: paint, sequences, stickers, pipe cleaners, pom-poms, paper plates and more!
Easter Craft Ideas for First Graders
If you celebrate Easter with your students, this craftivity kit comes with writing prompts discussing the Easter. These activities are a fun way to get your students practicing creative writing and celebrate the holiday. If you do not celebrate Easter in the classroom, don’t fear there are multiple non-Easter themed writing prompts included!
Spring Craft Ideas for First Graders
Celebrate the beginning of Spring and practice opinion writing with these Spring craft ideas for first graders! Each craft comes with multiple different writing prompts to help hit different standards. You can also use the blank prompt pages to use a prompt that fits what you are teaching right now!
Why crafts in the classroom?
I touched on this a bit in the introduction of this post but crafts still have a place in the classroom, let me explain! Crafting in the classroom is a great way to get your students talking, working independently, practicing fine motor skills and exercising their creativity. In recent years, education has put a huge emphasis on textbook work. Don’t get me wrong I see the importance in this. However, I teach 6-7 year olds, they are still little kids. They deserve to explore, have fun and develop a love for learning. Incorporating crafts is just one way I can make content more fun.
In addition, crafting is a GREAT low-pressure way to get students working independently. When my students come to me in August they are capable of about 5-7 minutes of working independently. As a first grade teacher, this is a skill we practice all year long. In the beginning of the year, a great way to begin building this stamina is through crafts. They enjoy crafts and they can get wrapped up for 20-30 minutes perfecting their project. Then, I can begin using crafts to compliment our standards and get 30-45 minutes of independent work time PLUS amazing work samples for our standards-based grading system.
Finally, don’t get me started on the fine motor skill practice that comes with crafting. Again, I’m teaching 6-7 year olds here. We are still working on pencil grip, crayon pressure, gluing, cutting, layering objects and more. With crafting we can work on tons of fine motor skills at one time!
I’ll stop there…
Clearly, I am passionate about bringing crafts into the classroom but I will save you from my TED talk. But, if I have you convinced you can check out the April Writing Craft Kit here. If you are looking for other Spring activities for your classroom, you may want to check out these Spring Math Activities!
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