Thanks to Kyla for having us over to do a guest post. My name is Nicola and you can find me over at Crafty Kids at Home. I have three kids aged 3, 5 and 7 and we love to sit down and do arts and crafts activities together and my blog charts our ideas and adventures. Pop over to see us and you will find lots of fun ideas for toddlers, pre-schoolers and older kids to enjoy together or on their own.

I really hope that Buddy is going to enjoy making our Bubble wrap Monsters, whist his little sister is busy having a nap!

How to make Bubble Wrap Monsters

Bubble wrap is a lovely bubbly sensory material to use in activities with toddlers and pre-schoolers in particular. It is a fun texture for them to explore with their fingers (and feet!) and it is such a versatile material.

Our most popular bubble wrap projects so far have been our Bubble Wrap Jellyfish, Bubble Wrap Tortoise and Bubble Wrap Wheels on the Bus!

Supplies

• TP Rolls
• Bubble wrap
• Elastic Bands
• Paint
• Google Eyes
• Foam Circles
• Coloured Dot Stickers

Ahead of the activity I filled 4 x paper plates with red, green, blue and yellow paint. We wanted our monsters to be as bright and bold possible (and not scary at all). And to prepare the bubble wrap stamps, I cut out squares of bubble wrap and secured them over the end of a TP roll using an elastic band.

When crafting with young children (especially if you are working with a small group of children) it is a good idea to prepare ahead as much as possible and have plenty of wet wipes and kitchen towels on standby for quick clean up operations.

Encourage your child to dip the stamps into the different coloured paints and then stamp them all over a sheet of paper. Don’t stress if they don’t want to use all of the colours you have laid out, it is their monster after all.

My own kids weren’t shy to get stuck into the paint and soon they had several sheets covered with colourful bubbly stamps all ready to turn into monsters with the little help of a few crafty supplies.

You can follow all of our ideas over on our Crafty Kids at Home Pinterest board.

Leave the paint to dry before starting on the monster making part of the activity.

My 5 year old son was very happy to take charge of the scissors in the next part of the activity. He had great fun cutting and snipping out the shape of his monster from his bubble wrap painting before decorating it with the supplies I had laid out in our handy chip and dip tray.

My 3 year old daughter is only just at the beginning of her cutting career and she was very reluctant to try and cut out a monster shape. Instead of taking over and doing this for her, I just let her get on with decorating her bubble wrap painting as she wished.

There is no right or wrong way to do an arts and crafts activity with your kids. It is more important to give them as much control over the tasks as possible to help them develop and learn. The actual outcome isn’t really that important at this age, taking part in the process is the most important part.

For more Monster making fun check out or Invitation to make Monsters and our Cupcake Liner Silly Monsters.