Children love to do things, simple, complex, strange, even very unnecessary things, but they need to do them. And as parents or caretakers, we too need them to do things, to keep them busy, and away from creating a ruckus. For most of us this becomes quite a dilemma to deal with. Kids have short attention spans, they get bored easily. There is a scientific reason for it though, their young minds are processing things around them all the time with high speed, so once they are done playing or dismantling stuff around them, they need something new to stimulate their thoughts. This is where easy crafts come in. Take a look at the following ideas given below. Craft Projects for Children: 3 to 10 years Color or Tear and Paste Children love coloring, and although many games are easily available, get them to make their own. Making a flag is an enjoyable experience for many kids. For younger kids, help them to draw an outline of the flag, with stripes and stars. Use a scale and stencil with shapes, or simply do a free hand. Get the kids to either color it with crayon or watercolor paint. Leave it aside to dry. Once dried up, cut it out and stick it onto a hard card sheet, and cut out the flag. For older children, get them to repeat the whole process till coloring the flag. Once it dries up, cut the flag like in parts; the stars, stripes and flag pole, and stick them like making your own jigsaw puzzle. The technique of coloring, tearing, and pasting can be used to make any design. Clay Modeling Kids will definitely enjoy building things with their own hands. Clay modeling is easy and fun. Get the kids to decide upon what they want to model the craft project on. It could be a building, an animal, a tree, a park (for the very creative ones), or just a smiley. Dedicate some separate space for this activity, else you will surely have colorful clay pieces all over the place. To build a clay model of their choice, give them plenty of clay. They can work alone, in pairs, or as a whole group. Craft Projects for Children: 10 years and above Recycled Snowman Materials Required

• Discarded CD, 1
• Small juice can lid, 1
• Orange craft foam
• Red chenille stem, 1 m
• Red color yarn, ½ m
• Plastic eyes, 2
• Black or red buttons, 3
• White spray paint, 1 can
• Black permanent marker
• Small pom-poms, 2
• Fabric glue, 1 stick

Instructions Clean dry the CD and can lid well, and spray paint. Set aside to dry. Glue the plastic eyes on the can lid. Cut out the orange foam in a triangular shape, and stick as the nose between and under the eyes. Using the permanent black pen, draw the snowman's mouth. Measure and cut a length of red chenille stem to fit it around the top of the can lid, leave a little on sideways (both). Glue the pom-poms on each side at the end of the chenille stem, to make it appear as earmuffs. Glue the juice can lid with all its decorations on top of the CD. Tie the red yarn around the neck of the snowman, at the place where the CD is attached to the can lid like a scarf. Glue three black buttons down the front to finish. Enjoy your snowman! Twig Frame Materials Required

• Twigs, 6 to 7 pieces
• Strings, 1 reel
• Ribbon, 1 reel
• Glue
• Photograph, 1

Instructions Break the twigs to a size about 2 inches longer and wider than your photograph. Place the twigs to surround the photograph, so they extend outwards about an inch in each direction. Tie the twigs at each corner, first with the string, and then the decorative ribbon. Secure the photograph by gluing the photo onto the back of the twig frame. Attach two strings onto the top part of the frame, to hang the photograph. Crafts not only keep children busy, but also encourage them to get creative. There are many crafts that help younger kids enhance their motor skills, while for older kids, it teaches them patience, coordination, and teamwork.