Crafts for 1 Year Olds

Coloring for Babies and Toddlers Stimulates Creativity

The stage where your child turns from baby to toddler is an exciting one. Little by little, a world of new activities and games opens up to them!

Colouring is a wonderful way to explore colors, art, imagination and shapes, stimulating finger dexterity and creativity! But as with so many everyday objects, standard crayons, felt tips and colouring pencils can be a hazard to small children. Pencils are sharp, while ink and wax can be toxic or certainly not good for your little one if they start licking or chewing on their colouring tools.

Luckily, those wonderful people at Crayola came up with a 12 months plus range of colouring sets, which are safe and suitable for 1 year olds. Of course, common sense still needs to be applied - always supervise your child during craft and colouring sessions, and if things are still going into mouths readily, wait a little longer before you start colouring with them, or perhaps only colour whilst your child has a pacifier.

When my daughter was about 14 months old, I got out a box of my own coloured pencils to see how she got on with them. She was past the stage of putting everything into her mouth and thoroughly enjoyed sorting the pencils in and out of the box. I had to watch her carefully though as she was prone to waving the pencils towards her face and nearly poking herself in the eye, so careful supervision was required! At first she was simply interested in them as sorting objects, but she soon enjoyed trying to copy me colouring with them once I showed her how, so I knew she was ready for her own special set.

What You'll Need:

* Paper or card - start with plain white paper and advance to coloured once your toddler has seen how the different coloured pens and pencils work
* Markers, crayons or chunky pencils suitable for 12 months
* Colouring books or printables
* A space for colouring - either a plastic toddler table, or a covered space such as a table with a wipeable cloth on or an old sheet on the floor
* Crayola's markers are easily washable off clothes, hands and more, but it might be a good idea to invest in a little toddler apron or smock if you are going to be doing this regularly!

You can have fun and learn at the same time, too! Incorporate animals, letters, numbers, objects and other ideas into your colouring activities and help your toddler learn the words. You can also involve them in holidays and celebrations such as Easter, Valentine's Day and more by theming your colouring sheets. While they won't understand what the day is for, they will be learning about new objects, words and shapes and you can enjoy a fun family activity.

You can also use colouring as a basis for future crafts as they get older, such as making cards, pictures, everyday objects and presents for friends and family.

Here is my pick of the best colouring products available for your 1 year old:

Crayola Beginnings First Markers (8 Pack)

Price: £2.99 BUY NOW
These first marker pens from Crayola get a well-deserved high star ranking on Amazon, and I give them five out of five myself. The pack contains 8 markers that have safe nibs suitable for 12 months and up, and they are brilliant!

They produce strong, bold colours, so unlike pencils and crayons, which have to be pressed down fairly hard to make a mark on paper, little ones can get to grips with these right away. My daughter loved watching the bold colours take form on the page!

They are easy to hold as well, but that's not the best thing about these ingenious pens - they are "super washable" too, and rinse off without soap or scrubbing. The minute my daughter got one in her hand, it was, well, all over her hand... but it wiped straight off with the barest of moisture.

We have also tried out the items below. The pack of 24 Crayola Beginnings Jumbo Crayons are nice and chunky for little hands to hold and feature a range of strong, bold colours. The chunky pencils are also excellent and my daughter gets on with all the colouring mediums very well. The colouring book is also very well designed - it has fun farm scenes inside, which my daughter is able to recognise from her farm storybooks and soft toy farm. Each page is partly coloured in already, with greyed out parts to stick the accompanying stickers on, while the rest is for colouring in.

Crayola Beginnings
24 Mini Kids
Jumbo
Crayons

Crayola Beginnings
Jumbo Pencils

Crayola Beginnings Colouring Book

Crayola
8 Jumbo Crayons

So, what other crafty things can you get up to with food? Here are some ideas.

Paint Cookies
If you're baking cookies for little one and you, involve your toddler by getting them to decorate the cookies before they go in the oven! Make some Homemade Edible Tempura Paint and show your little one how to brush on a colourful design with a paintbrush. You can help them add some yummy sprinkles too!

Vegetable and Potato Stampers
Cut some potatoes in half and carve out shapes into the flat side, such as hearts, stars, circles, triangles etc. Voila, you have some fun, safe shape stampers that your toddler can dip into chocolate or one of your other edible paints! You can also cut up vegetables such as carrot sticks and use them to stamp with as well. Have fun together exploring what shapes can be made with the end of a carrot or a cucumber slice, or see what pattern you can make when a painted carrot is rolled across the page!

Early Learning Centre Table for ages 1-6
(chairs sold separately, also available in blue and red)

You'll need an area for arts and crafts where you have plenty of space and won't damage anything precious! Cover surfaces or floors with splash mats, old sheets or newspaper and if you're doing something very messy, or crafting regularly, you might want to invest in a smock or apron for your toddler. The wipe-clean tabards are excellent for small children, such as The Gruffalo one below. Although they are marketed for ages 2-4. I would say they are one size fits all for the under fours. We have the Jemima Puddleduck one, which is supposed to be for 3 and up, but it has fitted my daughter since she was 1 and still fits her aged 2.

Always wash your toddler's hands as soon as you have finished and always supervise them, to ensure they don't put anything in their eyes or mouths that they shouldn't. Depending on what you have been doing, a wipe down or wash may suffice, but messier crafts or use of products that may smell (such as yoghurt-based paints) mean a bath will probably be in order!

If you plan to craft regularly with your toddler (please do! It's so much fun) then it's worth investing in a little plastic desk or table with a chair. This can be used for all kinds of things and most will last them for a good few years. We found the perfect one from the Early Learning Centre (pictured) - it's a plastic table with 2 little chairs (so ideal for siblings, visiting friends or even a companion toy!) that lasts from ages 1-6 and very reasonably priced. The chairs have solid backs as well so they are nice and comfortable.

Splash Mat "Splash" 1000 X 1500mm Pkt 4

East Coast Nursery Fisher-Price Under the Sea Splash Mat

Children's Wooden Table/Chair

Childrens Wooden Art Table & Chair

The Gruffalo Tabard for Children