When you are running out of ideas to keep your children busy, think of fun paper activities for them to do. Handcrafting items made from paper will make your children use their creativity and imagination. Paper activities are enjoyable to do whether your kids are doing them alone or with you.

People Paper Accordion

A people paper accordion is a piece of paper folded many times to create identical people shapes. Your children will have fun creating paper people of different sizes and colors. Folding the papers in an accordion-style by making even folds on top of each other will ensure the strips are equal. For added fun, your kids can make as many folds as they want to create a longer accordion. They will draw a shape of a person with extended hands on the topmost of their folded paper and cut around the person, but avoiding where the hands touch the folds. Once your kids open up the paper, they will be in awe of the outcome. Let the kids doodle and color on each person. Allowing your kids to have a free hand on styling the accordion will give them a sense of propriety.

Paper Dolls

This earth-friendly paper activity will use recycled materials like discarded food boxes, used coloring books or magazine photographs to make paper dolls. Your kids will cut photos of people or animals from used magazines. They can also draw their own paper doll images. Your children will glue the cut-out or drawn image on the recycled food box or cardboard, which they will cut around the edges. For the clothes, your kids will simply place a piece of paper on the paper doll image and trace the doll’s shape. Putting tabs on the traced image paper will keep the clothes on the doll. Finally, your kids will color the clothes and cut them out.

Paper Bouquets

One fun way to have your children pour out their creative juices is by immortalizing their palms and finger prints with paper bouquets. They’ll need two pieces of construction papers (one light and one with skin-like color), scissors, glue and crayons (substitute with markers or hand paint). Instruct your children to trace their palms and fingers on the skin-colored construction paper and cut the traced pattern. On a clean white sheet, your children will glue their traced palms on the lower left part of the paper without gluing the fingers. Then, your kids will draw green-colored stems from the palm upward diagonally. Drawing multi-colored flowers on the tips of the stems, and then gluing the fingers will ensure that the hands appear to be holding the bouquet of paper flowers. Your kids can give paper bouquets as gifts to their friends, teachers, parents and grandparents.

Paper Name Tags

Creating paper name tags is a fun-filled paper activity that can enhance your child’s creative potentials. You’ll need construction paper, crayons and scissors for this paper activity. Instruct your kids to fold a piece of paper in half before writing down their names near the fold. Cut around the names without crossing the line where the fold is. Unfolding the cutout will reveal the names, which you will glue on top of the colored paper.