This confetti collage activity for kids is perfect for working on fine motor skills and creativity, plus it’s lots of fun!
We seem to have a bit of an obsession with glue at our house.
Almost every morning Noah asks if he can do ‘gwuing’. It doesn’t matter what sort of glue we use, or what we stick with it, we just need to go some kind of ‘gwuing’ every day.
It’s lovely to see my smallest child getting lost in exploring and creating and getting ‘gwuey’, so I hatched a little plan to offer him something a little special and different to glue with. My plan was almost thwarted when I couldn’t find plain old paper confetti anywhere at our local shops. I could find metallic ‘confetti’ and heart shaped ‘table scatters’, and rice with glitter, but none of that good old fashioned coloured paper confetti.
Not one to be stopped by a little set back like that, I decided we could make our own confetti!
For the last week or so I have left out some strips of paper, a bowl, and a hole punch for Noah to play with. Using a hole punch is great for fine motor development and improving hand strength, plus it is fun! Whenever I had a few spare minutes here or there I would sit and punch a gazillion holes and dump the little circles of paper into the bowl. After a few days we had a bowl full of homemade confetti ready to use.
This morning I got out the confetti, a big sheet of thick paper and, of course, some glue!
We used PVA glue with a tiny bit of water added and an even tinier drop of food colouring. I tinted the glue ever so slightly pink so that Noah could easily see where he had painted the glue on the paper. You could also use a glue stick if you don’t have any PVA.
Noah painted his pinkish glue onto the paper, at first just making random patterns with the glue, but later painting and naming specific things such as a monster and a fish. Once the glue was on the paper he sprinkled it with the confetti.
Getting a pinch of confetti in your fingers and sprinkling it over the glue is another great way to work those small muscles in your hands, plus it is loads of fun!
Shake the excess confetti off the paper, back into the container and you are ready to make another collage.
And another one… until you run out of confetti!
After three confetti collage masterpieces we had run out of confetti! But luckily we had lots of holey strips of paper left over from our hole punching to glue. So Noah sat and glued and glued while I started making even more confetti so we can do this fun activity all over again!
If you like to get a little ‘gwuey’ too, then here are some more simple collage ideas…
Foil Collage, Simple Strip Collage, Letter Collage and Autumn Leaf Collage.
This is a fabulous idea! I love that you tinted the ‘gwue’.
So – sounds like a fabulous idea. One question though – how did you keep the bowl of confetti from getting spilled every five minutes? We tried glueing spangles to Valentine’s hearts recently and I had to pick about 500 sequins out of the carpet before we were finished… Would love any advice you might have!
Oh we had lots of confetti all over the place when we were done!
I did put the paper on a tray before we started in the hope that would catch most of the extra confetti, and it did help, but there was still plenty everywhere.
We are lucky and only have floor boards in our house which are super easy to keep clean and my boy LOVES using the dust pan and broom and confetti is super easy to sweep up… so I just let it get everywhere and we cleaned it up when we were done. I imagine it would vacc out of carpet as easily being light bits of paper?
tinted glue is such a great idea – will have to do that
(I found traditional confetti at the newsagent)
I looked at our tiny newsagents but they didn’t have any… though I bet now that I don’t need it I will find it everywhere! LOL
Thank you for this great idea!
I have a 3 1/2 year old boy, who has no interest in craft (which makes me very sad). However he was sitting on my lap when your email came through and he got really excited when he saw the pictures. I madly dashed around the house to find some old paper and hole punch to get him started.
Lets hope he keeps going and we actually get it on the paper.
Even if he doesn’t ever get into gluing.. just the hole punching alone is loads of fun and great for all those fine motor skills.
There is lots of time for him to become interested in creating, once he is done working on whatever he’s into right now :)
What I brilliant idea!!! I love it. I am going to do this with my preschoolers. I have 11 in my class and I just love the projects where they can talk while they work. Some of the best conversations take place when we cut and glue. Paper punching will be awesome! (Got to find a lot of punches).
I love your extra colourful confetti Kate! My little boy (19 months) is showing interest in being creative. He really loves drawing and I think he’ll be ready for some early craft. I thought I might start him on some collages using contact paper as the glue to make it easier for him. Do you have any other ideas for first craft projects that are successful? Thanks Kate, I always love reading your blog.
My boys have been playing with the hole punch so much lately. They think it’s the best toy ever to make dots that get all over the place. I am going to start saving them for confetti, and do this project with them. They love to glue too. Things that we have glued to paper recently: noodles, marshmallows, popcorn, feathers, beans, pompoms, gems, rice, wheat, and of course, paper. Thanks for a fun idea!! :)
I am taking my hole puncher out tomorrow, we might try to decorate Easter eggs with confetti and use your tinted gwue (what a clever idea to put drop of color onto your glue)
I’ve just set this up for T on a tray tomorrow to bring out when we get home from the school run – I think we will be making confetti all week and I have a feeling that I will be hoovering them up all week as well.
Thank you for linking up to Tuesday Tots last week and just letting you know that I will be featuring this over on Rainy Day Mum this week.
I have an idea for the rest of the scrapes of paper you made confetti out of.
Put it through a paper shredder and make some odd shaped confetti. Mix it with the circles and the confetti last that much longer.
Your son’s picture is adorable!
What a great idea!