Easy Kids Crafts for Fourth of July

I don’t know why the Fourth of July feels like a crafting holiday to me, but it does. I guess it’s because stars and stripes and red, white and blue are such simple things to work with and build off of, and there’s something extra-homey about a kid-made American flag.

Even if you’re not super crafty yourself, these kid crafts for the Forth of July are quick and easy to make and fun to use as decor for all your holiday gatherings.

These cute ribbon wand flags from Ruffles and Rain Boots are also a great fine-motor skill activity for little ones as they loop the ribbon to attach it to the stick. Add to the fun by painting the sticks if you like (before you add the ribbon, of course!).

Speaking of ribbon, Momfessionals has an easy flag craft inspired by a wind sock made from a plastic cup and ribbons. This one is especially great for parents (or teachers!) who don’t like the mess that’s often associated with kids crafting.

Stringing beads is another great fine-motor skill builder, and kids can get lots of practice stringing beads when they make these patriotic necklaces. These are made with beads and paper straws. Littler kids can make beaded bracelets with pipe cleaners and pony beads. Get the tutorial from Buggy and Buddy.

Paper tubes are a great base for all sorts of crafts, including this patriotic blower from Natural Beach Living. There is a little painting involved, so this one isn’t quite as quick as some of the other ones, but they’re still really cute.

I thought these rockets from Heart Filled Spaces were also a paper tube craft, but it’s actually all made with cardstock cut with a cutting machine (there are instructions for doing it by hand, too). You could use a tube if you wanted to make it a little easier!

Or make this cute straw painted paper plate star craft from Our Kid Things. This one can get a little messy, but it’s also a lot of fun!

A classic manipulative in the preschool and early elementary classroom is the snap cube, also known as math cubes, unifix cubes or unit cubes. These little one inch cubes often come in a set of 100 in 10 different colors, and they snap together so they’re easy to use for all sorts of math learning, measuring and more.

No Time for Flashcards has a cute robot printable to use with cubes to measure the height of each robot. That one is free but they also have other printable cube mats that are a paid resource.

Catherine & Co uses math cubes to teach kids about measuring volume. They make a letter from cubes and then measure the volume (there’s a printable worksheet in the post).

Pattern recognition is another fun and easy activity you can do with the cubes. You can use printables like these from Planning Playtime, or just make a pattern from cubes and have kids repeat it or figure out what comes next. There’s another good set of pattern printables at English Created Resources.

Because there are 10 sets of 10 cubes in a pack, these are great for teaching one to one correspondence, counting, sorting and basic addition and subtraction. English Created Resources has great printable number mats you can use to form the number from cubes and count out the number of cubes that corresponds to that number.

ParenTutor has a great collection of snap cube activity ideas, most of which are just pictures, but it’s work taking a look through the post for ideas for using them at home or in the classroom.

To give just a few of their examples, you can match linked blocks to the corresponding number of pieces, use blocks to find different ways to add up to 10, compare numbers and determine which one is more or less, skip counting and weighing different numbers of blocks.

You can also use unit cubes to learn letters, like with these super cute alphabet mats from Fun Learning for Kids. Kids can trace the letter, make it out of cubes and practice writing a word that starts with that letter.

Of course you can also use them to build things, since they are blocks, and there are tons of pattern mats on Teachers Pay Teachers. I also love these dinosaur themed mats from Lets Go to Learn on Etsy.

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