Leis remain an easy-to-make luau craft for children.
Parents or teachers can plan a set of luau-themed crafts for a variety of special events, including Hawaiian-themed birthday parties, school days leading up to summer vacation or as part of summer camp activities. These crafts are relatively inexpensive to make, oftentimes using such simple materials as crayons, glue and construction paper. Although younger children may require assistance, children between the ages of 4 and 12 can typically participate in such crafts.
Ocean Diorama
The craft project begins as children remove the lid from a shoe box and cover the inside with blue construction paper. In order to decorate the interior with underwater imagery, children can draw, color and cut out fish shapes of different sizes from other pieces of construction paper. Children can also create the appearance of swimming fish by punching a small hole at the top of the paper fish, looping a piece of thread through it and attaching the string to the roof of the box's interior with scotch tape. Pipe cleaners, shaped and glued to the floor of the interior, can represent coral or seaweed.
Shell Picture Frames
Before starting this craft, each child will need a plain wooden or plastic picture frame, as well as a variety of brightly colored, nontoxic paints to dress up the frame. Children should paint their picture frames in whatever color they choose. Once the paint dries, they can use tacky glue to attach small seashells along the border of the frame for a tropical theme.
Seashells can be purchased from a local arts and crafts supply store. If possible, parents or teachers can add to the craft activity by taking children to a nearby beach so they can pick their own shells from the shore. Children can add other decorations to the frame, if desired, such as beach-themed stickers.
Grass Skirts and Leis
Kids can easily design their own grass skirts and leis, the quintessential luau outfit. For grass skirts, an adult should measure a stretch of green butcher paper around the child's waist before cutting long strips upwards, all the way around the paper. To secure the skirt, you can glue a piece of Velcro to the back of the skirt where the two ends meet.
Children can make leis by stringing thread through plastic flowers that can be found at most any arts and crafts supplies store. Kids can also make and design the flowers out of tissue or construction paper.
Tags: construction paper, arts crafts, grass skirts, interior with, thread through