Easy Diwali Crafts for Kids

There are lots of great crafts associated withDiwali the festival of lights, and making something related to a holiday or celebration that you don’t celebrate yourself is a great entry point (of course these are great for kids and families who do celebrate Diwali as well).

One of the most common crafts associated with Diwali is the diya, a small oil lamp. My daughter’s class once harvested clay from their playground and made little bowls filled with battery powered candles for this purpose.

Rangoli, which are geometric designs similar to mandalas, are also a popular feature of Diwali celebrations, and you can find lots of options to print out and color.

The Educator’s Spin on it has collected a bunch of different options for making diya, rangoli and other Diwali crafts, as well as some books you can read while you make your crafts to learn more about the celebration. Head to her blog for all the details.

[Photo: The Educator’s Spin on it.]

When my daughter was younger I would spend a lot of time trying to come up with activities she could do in the car on long road trips and things to entertain her when we were waiting at restaurants and things that didn’t involve screens.

But it turns out there are a lot of great activities you can do with just a piece of paper and a pen.

What Do We Do All Day has a great collection of pen and paper games, including some that can be done with just one person, though they’re all more fun if you have at least two.

There are some classics on here like hangman and dots and boxes, but there are also quite a few I hadn’t heard of before.

I don’t want to spoil the whole list for you because you should definitely click over there and look around, but I will share about the one that you see pictured above.

This game is called Bridges, and you start by making the big random shape and the dividing it into a bunch of sections (the post says 30-50 sections is ideal but I think this one is smaller than that).

Each player gets their own color marker and you take turns drawing bridges from one space to another, crossing a third. Once there’s a bridge, no other bridges can start, end or cross in those spaces. Keep going until no more bridges can be built, and the person who makes the last bridge wins.

Check out the post over at What We Do All Day for more great ideas for no or almost-no prep games you can play with your kids or that kids can play together. I’d love to know if you have a favorite paper and pen game, whether it’s on this list or a different one.

[Photo: What We Do All Day]

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