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Physical |
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Fine Motor Skills:
It is important for children to fine motor skills by developing small muscle movements that occur in the fingers in coordination with the eyes. Activities such as holding a spoon, pouring, stirring, using a dropper/pipette and the activities involved in packaging and labeling products are all great activities to help develop and refine the fine motor skills. |
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Hand Eye Coordination:
Activities such as pouring, stirring, filling, straining, use of the baller and grating all help develop hand and eye coordination in children. As they develop better coordination, they will be able to complete processes with less spillage and in less time. |
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Mental |
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Creativity:
We strongly encourage you and your child to explore the possible variations of the products that can be made with each of our kits. Read about the suggested additional items, and have fun creating your own recipes. Be creative with your labeling and packaging as well. |
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Critical Thinking:
Critical thinking is the identification and evaluation of evidence when making decisions. For many of our kits, the child must identify their project goal before beginning the process or making the kit. Factors such as user skin type, flavor/fragrance and color coordination will need to be evaluated before selecting the ingredients. Proper evaluation will lead to a better end product. Questions may be presented to the child to help them identify the evidence. "Is your skin dry?" may be a difficult question for the child to answer, so you may ask instead "Is your skin itchy?" or "Does your skin feel tight?" The question "What color do you think of when you think of bubble gum?" can assist him/her in choosing coordinating colors for fragrances. |
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Lengthen Attention Span:
Learning how to focus for long periods of time is a difficult skill for most young children and for some older children. Exciting projects help develop concentration by engrossing the child and by keeping their attention focused on the end result. It is important to carefully seleect kits based upon your child's ability to remain focused so that the project will be completed before your child's interest wanes. |
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Planning:
Some of our kits allow the child to choose whether to make one application or packages for multiple applications while other kits allow them to decide which colors, fragrances, ingredients they wish to use. Planning is an important skill that helps eliminate mistakes and confusion during the actual production process. Children should be encouraged to listen to the entire list of instructions and make their decisions prior to beginning their craft. Questioning your child can help your child if he/she is unable to or hesitates to make decisions on his/her own. If he/she has trouble choosing a color, you might ask "What fragrance do you want to use?" as one answer might assist them in deciding the other. |
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Project Completion:
Developing persistance and perseverance is an important step in the learning process. It is a necessary if the child is to learn from his or her activities. Giving children enjoyable learning activities promotes the ability to concentrate for longer periods of time. Coupling both development of concentration with the expectation that all work must be completed and then put away properly helps foster persistance and perseverance. Completion of a project leads to self esteem and encourages the child to continue in the learning process.
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Sequencing:
The concept of "sequencing" is a very important skill that helps children develop their ability to follow instructions in order. Effective sequencing skills lead to more organized and structured thought processes. The child learns to store and retrieve information efficiently and understands temporal relationships. Sequencing has various levels of expertise and usage. Young children begin learning sequencing by ordering objects by size or color. Following step-by-step recipes gives children a perfect opportunity to practice advanced sequential event planning and proceduralizing. |
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Texture:
Children, especially younger ones, enjoy the tactile experience of working with ingredients such as oatmeal, oils, butters, salts and glitters. you may allow children to feel the various ingredients provided that their hands are washed and dried well and as long as the product does not contain water. |
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Using Tools to Acquire Desired Effect:
Several of the Kits For Crafts kits uses simple kitchen tools such as ballers, graters, strainers funnels and plastic bags. Children love the chance to use tools that they see adults use. Discuss the tool that you are using and talk about how the tool works, if it can be used to do other things and what would you have to do if you didn't have the tool. |
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Visual, Tactile and Olfactory Discrimination:
Working with our ingredients and creating skin care or home care products will encourage your child to make decisions based on visual, tactile and olfactory discrimination. Encourage the process of discrimination by asking questions such as "Is the scent too strong?", "Is the color intense enough?", or "Is the balm too hard or too soft?". Allow the child to decide if he/she is satisfied with the result and whether or not he/she wants to make any changes. Be patient while your child makes this decision and refrain from deciding for them whenever possible (keep in mind the limitations on use of essential oils when discussing fragrance strength). |
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Math |
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Addition:
Many Kits for Crafts kits contain enough ingredients to make multiple products or batches. By doubling a recipe, your child's skill in addition and multiplication comes into play. When you double a recipe, seek out the assistance of your child by asking him/her to perform the math needed for each ingredient. Be sure to doublecheck your child's calculations before utilizing them within the doubled recipe. |
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Measuring:
Young children will learn about measuring using standard spoon and cup measures. Explain and demonstrate the difference between using the standard measuring instruments verses using a regular spoon or cup. Discuss the various units of measure, and practice converting spoon measurements into cups. For an older child, demonstrate the differences between volumetric measurements and weight measurements. |
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Percentages:
All cosmetic formulations are based upon weight. All ingredients, therefore, are weighed carefully and expressed in recipes as percentages by weight of the total batch. The sum of the percentages should always add up to 100. Older children can be encouraged to work out the percentages of ingredients used in our recipes. They can also develop their own recipes using the recommended use by percentage of each ingredient. |
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Weighing:
Although none of the Kits For Crafts kits specifically require you to weigh any of then included ingredients, many of our kits can be used to create a lesson on weight measurements. To do so, weigh the ingredients as you work. We encourage you to discuss the differences between the metric scale and imperial scale. You can find many conversion sites available online. |
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Social |
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Cooperative Interaction:
Working together on a Kits For Crafts kit is fun and rewarding. Our kits do require some assistance from an adult and can be done with more than one child at a time. Before beginning your kit, we recommend that you read the instructions together and then go over who will perform each step. This will teach each child to take turns and be patient while waiting for someone else to complete a task. Cooperative interaction is a life long skill that cannot be stressed enough. |
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Self Esteem:
Creativity and mastery of skills leads to development of good self esteem. Always encourage your child to make their own decisions regarding the project and to perform each step safely (remember, some steps must be done by an adult). Kits should be chosen according to the recommended age level for younger children. The child should be able to perform at least 75% of the procedure with minimal assistance. Encourage your child to give his or her creations as handmade gifts to loved ones. |
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Environment and Self Care |
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Care of Environment:
Children should be involved in the clean up after the kit is completed. This teaches the child to care for their environment and to take responsibility for maintaining a clean, orderly environment. Clean up is part of the process, and the project should not be considered complete until the work area is clean. |
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Learning About Natural Skin Care:
Kits For Crafts kits are designed to be as natural and as gentle on the skin as possible. Fragrance oils may be omitted to create all natural products. Make a fun project out of comparing the ingredients of regular commercial skin care products with those created with you Kit For Crafts kits. Older children can do research on ingredients typically used in commercial products. They can also do a science project on the comparison between commercial products and handcrafted products. |
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Safety:
Children should be taught about the concept of safety beginning at a very young age.Discuss the consequences of certain actions to reveal the inherent safety issue. Doing so is more effective than simply saying "don't do that, it's dangerous". Always read the instructions for a kit beforehand, and discuss any safety concerns with your child. Make sure that they understand the safety issues before starting the project. Always convey to your child the importance of not putting any of the ingredients or tools in the mouth, washing hands before and after the project, protecting clothing and work space, staying within a safe distance away from the stove and the safe handling of hot liquids. Never allow a child to help with procedures that are specifically meant for an adult to perform. Allowing them to perform adult procedures will send the child mixed messages regarding what procedures are safe for children and also will not establish the foundation for the rules that protect your child from harm. |
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