Mother's Day Collage Crafts

This Mother's Day use this easy craft activity to help children celebrate their mom with a fun collage gift. Collage crafts are simple, cheap gifts any child can make for their mother while also learning how to express herself and be descriptive.

Use this Mother's Day activity in a church or school classroom before the holiday, or use it as an at-home craft idea for rainy afternoons. Just keep the finished Mother's Day gift a secret until the holiday so Mom will be surprised.

Provide a variety of old magazines, wrapping paper, craft paper, and photos. Also provide lots of fun craft materials like fabric scraps, feathers, stickers, buttons, pipe cleaners and anything with a fun color or texture. Glue, child-safe scissors, and crayons or markers are also needed.

Instruct children to look through the magazines for images that remind them of their mother. It could be a word in a pretty font that describes their mother, like "creative," "beautiful," "fun," or "funny." They may want to cut out individual letters and spell out their own descriptive words like a ransom note. Children should also look for pictures and images that describe their mother. Maybe the fried chicken photo in the grocery ad looks like their mother's favorite recipe, or the beautiful photo of roses makes them think of how much their mother like flowers. Let them cut out as many words and pictures as they can find to put in their Mother's Day craft collage.

Older children may want to go further by adding typed quotes for their Mother's Day collage. Let them look on the internet for quotes about motherhood, parenting, happiness, life or learning. Or ask them what their mother's favorite songs, Bible verses or quotes are. Help them type a few lines from their mother's favorite song, a Bible verse, a quote, or a poem. Keep the typed items in a column less then three inches wide so they will work best in the Mother's Day collage.

You can also encourage children to write their own poem about their mother to place in the center of the collage. Easy poems for younger children could be taking the word Mom, Mother, or their mother's first name and thinking of a word for each letter. Let them write their Mother's Day poems on a piece of pattern craft paper with markers and then trim it for the collage craft.

Spread out all the magazine cuttings on the table. Add copies of their favorite photos of their mother or the family. Then, provide glue and glue-sticks and tell children to use the pictures, words and photos to make a beautiful collage. Give them a large sheet of craft paper and supervise as they work on their collage gifts. Add the craft materials, like feathers and buttons, for more color and texture. When the collages have had time to dry, let the children present them to their mothers.