Butcher Paper Activities for Young Children

With a roll of butcher paper and some crayons or markers, you can keep your little ones entertained during those long winter afternoons or those scorching summer middays. Here are a few fun and educational activities you can do with a roll of butcher or craft paper.

Life-sized Me: Roll out some paper and have your child lie down on the paper. Trace around their entire body. Little kids love this! Then have them add the details with crayons - add facial features, clothing details, colors, hair, and so on until the picture is complete. You can talk about body parts, clothing, colors - so this simple craft can be extended into a true learning activity! If you have extra materials such as yarn for the hair and scrap cloth for the clothes you can get even more creative! Let them trace you for even more fun! Kids really get into "decorating" their parents!

Treasure Hunt: Before your kids know what the activity is all about, hide a special surprise in a not-too-easy-to-find location. Then draw a big map on the butcher paper that leads the kids all over the house. If a reader is playing, you can even leave little messages here and there along their path to make the activity last a bit longer and throw in a little reading practice. When the treasure is found, have a little picnic and sing some pirate songs!

Board Game: If you have very little kids, create the board game yourself on the butcher paper. It sounds complicated, but you can literally invent a simple board game to practice just about any skill or vocabulary. Just draw a path of blocks like you would see on Candyland or one of those games. Every now and then have a picture in the block that the player must identify. This could be animals, shapes, colors, parts of the body, even written reading words if you are playing with an emerging reader. You could have partially spelled or misspelled spelling words for the the older child with an upcoming spelling test. The possibilities are endless. If you do play with an older child, you can even have them create the game. Even high schoolers enjoy this activity as a review for Spanish, history, English, or any other subject where words and facts need to be memorized. Grab dice from another game and use just about anything as a marker.

Invent a City: Roll out the paper and design a city together. Talk about what some of the important and necessary places in a town or city are and include them. Then add streets and train tracks. Talk about traffic signals and signs and add a few of those. Then pull out the toy cars and trains and bring the town to life!

Mural: Butcher paper and paints or markers are all you need to create a fantastic mural. Come up with a theme and let each child have a section of the mural to complete. In the dead of winter, you might do a tropical jungle theme. Or in the heat of summer, create a snowy winter wonderland. Or have the kids invent an alien planet and really get creative!

Once you start thinking about it, you will come up with endless activities that can be done with an inexpensive roll of paper and something to write with! It's a good thing to keep on hand for those days where the TV and video games seem like the only option!