What color are dinosaur eggs?
"I don't know," says 6-year-old McKenna Fairbanks. "So I painted mine purple and green."
Collin Wong, also 6, painted his egg red and blue, but his 10-year-old sister, Lexi, chose pink and purple. Braden Jones, 5, liked the browns and yellows better — or maybe he just liked the messy fun those colors can be.
That's the thing about this, said Jordan Johnson, an assistant manager at the Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur Museum, "we don't know what color dinosaur eggs were, so you can make them any color you want."
The kids and their parents were participating in one of the weekly family-night activities sponsored by the museum. "Sometimes we make papier-mache eggs, sometimes we do molding and casting," said Johnson. Sometimes there are other activities as well, "but we do a lot of crafts. There's something about hands-on crafts that gets the kids more interested, more excited."
Crafts let kids express themselves, said Tiffany Fairbanks, who had brought McKenna and Sydney, 4, to the event. "They can do their own thing, and there's nothing right or wrong. I love crafts!"
She's not alone. More and more parents, grandparents, teachers and other adults are coming to appreciate the value of crafts for kids.
An online survey conducted by the Hobby Industry Association found that 97 percent of parents and grandparents believe that working on school craft projects helps children learn. Another survey showed similar results among teachers. Ninety-seven percent said that "students' learning improves when classroom lessons incorporate hands-on activities." Teachers also say craft projects help motivate student and generate a greater interest in the subject matter.
"I'm a firm believer that arts and crafts are a great way to help kids learn and develop," said Kathleen Watson, vice president of marketing for Klutz, a company that specializes in activity books/kits for kids.
Crafts, she says, help with hand-eye coordination. "But they are also a big self-esteem, self-confidence booster. There's nothing quite like the feeling of making something yourself, and saying, 'Look what I made.' "
And, she said, crafts are great family activities. "We have a whole line of classic crafts. Parents want to introduce to their own children the things that the parents did as kids. It brings them together in a nice way."
Klutz's new spring line includes activities such as twirled paper, an up-dated version of the Victorian art of quilling; spool knit jewelry, a stylish twist on old-fashioned crocheting; a new book of paper airplanes; and a "Me and My Friends" scrapbook/journal kit designed for friends to do together.
HIA studies have shown that kids who start crafting early are likely to continue crafting, said Watson. "Crafts give them new activities that go beyond TV and video games. There are just a lot of intangible benefits and rewards."
E-mail: carma@desnews.com