CD Octopus: Art and Craft Activity for Toddlers

My sister and I have gotten really good at providing Seb with “NO PREP” activities.

Click here to read more about “no prep” activities.

And my curly-haired nephew isn’t complaining. In fact, he seems to enjoy playing with just regular household items.

But today is a special day. We decided to introduce a simple art and craft activity to Seb for a change.

This activity is great for his creativity and imagination while also strengthening his hand, wrist and finger muscles. Doing this art and craft activity needs a lot of fine motor manipulations so it’s like hitting two birds with one stone!

Since he loves animals and he can already identify the octopus, we opted to go for the tentacled sea creature.

The preparation was quick and easy. It took us merely 5 minutes to prepare the following materials:

• CDs
• colorful strips of papers
• tape
• cut out drawings of eyes and mouth (since this was an impromptu activity and we didn’t have google eyes in the house, we just improvised by drawing on a piece of paper)
• strips of cloth (this is supposed to be a yarn, but we don’t have any so we just used strips of cloth- anyways, this will just be used for hanging the finished work)

Just as fast as we prepared everything, Seb was also able to finish in no time.

We explained to Seb that we will make an octopus and we directed him as to where he’s supposed to stick the tentacles.

When it was time to stick the eyes and mouth, he playfully placed them on his eyes first before sticking them on the CD octopus. 😛

In the end, Seb was able to make a cute, happy-looking CD octopus with a lopsided mouth!

Long after the art and craft activity, Seb was still enjoying sticking the extra paper eyes and mouth on himself and his mom.

Actually, he spent a longer time playing with the paper eyes than on the actual activity. 😀

Seb wasn’t the only who enjoyed the activity. As an aunt, I find it really cute and amazing to see my nephew’s tiny hands sticking papers on CD and following directions.

I hope he sustains the enthusiasm and excitement as he gets older.

Oh, and before I end this, I have to remind myself that next time we have another art and craft activity for Seb, we should show him a sample artwork  so he has an idea what he’s working on.

I do this all the time in class, I don’t know why I forgot to do it today.

Anyways, there’s always a next time. ❤

Teacher’s Advice:

For art and craft activities, always have a finished artwork to show your child as an example so he/she has an idea what to do.

The sample would also be an extra motivation for him/her to finish the artwork.

 

Keep creating!

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