Holi Crafts for Kids

I’ve written a few times before about Holi, the colorful spring festival that celebrates the triumph of good over evil. But it feels like this time of year we could all use some colorful crafts and activities, so it’s no wonder this celebration has spread beyond its traditional Hindu roots. Let’s take a look at some more fun Holi crafts and activities for kids.

One of the main characteristics of Holi is lots of color thanks to the colored powder that is thrown around during the festivities. Now’s a perfect time to pull out any paint pouring activities (here’s a tutorial from Mama Smiles unrelated to Holi, just use bright colors) or dropping liquid watercolors onto paper (as in these Holi cards from Artsy Craftsy Mom). Use spray inks or colors to make a splatter effect on a card like this one from Crazy Crafter.

Anything that gets a lot of colors on a canvas or paper quickly and boldly is great for Holi. Maybe painting with balls or marbles?

Activity Village has a Holi-themed painted people activity using powdered paint that would also be fun, and of course you can make different shapes if you like. I also love these handprint cards from The Joy of Sharing, which would also be super cute as a classroom display on one big piece of paper.

And of course it doesn’t have to be just colorful paint. Pull out all the colorful paper you have on hand to make fun rolled paper sculptures to use as Holi displays. These ones from Art Bar are so fun and adults will want to get in on it, too.

If you have littles who love sensory experiences, it’s time to make some rainbow rice or pasts (here’s a recipe from Busy Toddler) and you can just play with the rice or add things of different colors and make it a color sorting activity. Speaking of, now would be a great time for learning about colors with little ones!

I don’t know why Pinterest just suddenly decided I needed to see all the content about task cards and task boxes for kids, but these ideas are great for the classroom to keep in centers or have on hand for early finishers. You can also use them at home as quiet bags or boxes for kids to use when younger siblings might be sleeping, or in the car for a non-screen activity.

Let’s take a look at some fine motor skill task cards and how you can use them to teach kids skills while they play.

Pre-K Pages has a nice set of playdough task cards you can use in boxes or bags with a little tray (or they can just work on the table if they are sitting at a table). Working with clay or play dough is a great fine motor skill exercise, or you can add these to your playdough center if you have one to give them a little bit of direction while they work.

Teaching Mama has a bunch of great ideas for fine motor task boxes, from practicing working a glue bottle to threading beads, using clothespins or scissors, dropping water, finger painting and more. There’s a free printable that shows all the task options she talks through in the post if you want to make your own little boxes, or just keep these ideas on hand when you’re ready to add some fine motor fun to your days.

One of the ideas she mentions in that post is working with a hole punch, and Early Learning Ideas has a whole bunch (the urge to write “hole bunch” is strong) of ideas for printables that help kids practice hole punching, whether it’s a strip with circles on it for them to punch or pictures that include circles for punching, these ideas make it a little more fun to practice this important skill.

My Happy Place Teaching has a whole post about using fine motor task boxes in kindergarten, and her paid resource includes more than 100 task ideas with printables. But if you don’t need 100 boxes you can still get some good ideas from this post about different tasks to include and why and when you can use them. She also mentions using them in the morning while you’re busy with kids coming in at different times, which is a great idea.

Have you read?

Leave a Reply