It’s hard to not get excited about the Fourth of July. It’s a time of summer fun, backyard barbeques, and fireworks. If you want to light up your child’s day, try these sensory crafts that are festive and easy to make. Some require adult supervision or involvement, but many can be done by children themselves. Your kids will have a blast (no pun intended) making these patriotic crafts!
1.) Water Table Fireworks
The Fourth of July is all about the fireworks. Make them extra special with this fun sensory project that combines water play, panting, and blowing. Fill a large plastic tub with water. At the end of the tub, fill up some plastic cups with red, white, and blue paints or food coloring (if you want to make it even more festive, use silver glitter). Make sure the paint is nontoxic if you go this route. You can mix each cup with a little bit of water and dawn to give it extra bubble power. Place straws in each cup so the kiddos can blow bubbles that overflow them into the water when ready. This activity is kind of like bubbling over your milk glass as a kid by blowing into it. It turns the water in the tub into patriotic colors like fireworks.
2.) Fourth of July Moon Sand
Moon sand is a fun alternative to regular sand that you can use with your kids to make figurines, flags, and other patriotic crafts. It’s made with just a few ingredients: cornstarch, baking soda, and water. You’ll have to mix the ingredients to make moon sand, but it’s not as hard as you think!
First, add 2 cups of cornstarch into a large bowl (or any container), and then gradually add 1 cup of baking soda while stirring it with a spoon until all of the cornstarch has been mixed well into the baking soda. Next, add 1/2 cup of water at a time while mixing until all three ingredients are combined evenly throughout your mixture.
Your final product should look smooth, like wet cement or beach sand, when done correctly! You can add a few drops of food coloring to make patriotic colors like red and blue.
Now how do I clean up? Simply sweep up any excess powder from your work surface using a broom or dustpan before rinsing any remaining residue in warm water using soap or dish detergent if necessary (depending on what kind of surface you used). You can throw away the moon sand when your child is finished with it or store it in a sealed container for a week or so.
3.) Stars and Stripes Playdough
Mixing the following together, you can make red, white, and blue playdough. This will give you enough for four small batches of playdough. If you want to make more than that, simply double or triple the recipe! Each batch should make about 1/4 cup of playdough.
- 1 cup flour
- ½ cup salt
- 2 tbsp cream of tartar (or baking soda)
After you have mixed them up, separate the batches, then add in food coloring and squish/mix it to stir the color in. Kiddos are great helpers during this part.
Free Printable Unicorn Playdough Mats
You can grab a set of 26 free printable unicorn playdough mats to go along with your Fourth of July Playdough. Simply download them and print them off. Check out more printable crafts by Mommy Daughter Love too!
4.) Red White and Blue Shaving Cream Painting
Red, white and blue shaving cream paint is fun for kids of all ages. This recipe is super easy to make and uses ingredients you probably have right in your kitchen!
If you’d like to get started on this craft, here’s what you’ll need:
- A large container (a plastic tub or cake pan works well)
- Shaving cream
- Red, white, and blue paint
- Fork
- Paper
Put a layer of shaving cream in your plastic tub, then drizzle in red, white, and blue craft paint. Have the kids swirl it around and make astonishing patterns. Then you can take paper and press it into the shaving cream and paint mixture. Lift up the paper, and scrape off the shaving cream to create cool works of art.
5.) Sensory Bottles
Sensory bottles are a great way to help your child explore their senses. They can be used at home, in your homeschool classroom for early elementary schoolers, or even on the go! Sensory bottles are made by filling a clear bottle with liquid and adding natural materials that float or sink.
Materials needed:
- Water (a little bit of dish soap might help)
- Plastic glitter stars, confetti, and eyeballs for the Fourth of July
- Clear water bottles with lids (There are many options available on Amazon.)
Instructions:
- Pour water into the bottle until it’s 3/4 full
- Add in glitter, confetti, and fourth of July stuff until it is full.
- Place lid on top
- Shake up the bottle so all of the contents mix together
- Decorate with stickers or paint if desired
- Allow to dry and enjoy!
These sensory bottles are clear and simplistic with nice black lids.
Simple Bonus Sensory Crafts for the Fourth of July
There are a lot of fun crafts that kids can do. Here are some bonus ideas for making crafts for the Fourth of July holiday.
- Paper Plate Fireworks: Cut out different-sized stars and stripes from colored paper plates and glue them on another paper plate. Then, cut small triangles from red, white, and blue tissue paper to glue as firework tails. Finally, punch holes in the top and bottom of the paper plate and tie a string through it so your child can wear it like a lanyard!
- Watermelon Tic Tac Toe: This is one of my favorite sensory activities because it’s so simple but so much fun! All you need are two melons (or any other fruit that makes nice cubes) and markers that make great fine motor control practice. Oh yeah! And tic tac toe boards cut out of cardboard or construction paper! The best part about this activity is how creative your child will get with their designs. There’s no right or wrong way to make them. Simply make cool tic-tac-toe boards with the markers and use the melon cubes as the pieces.
- Fourth of July Ring Toss: If you want a ready-made sensory activity that helps young kids with gross motor skills like throwing check out Amazon’s fourth of July ring toss.
Conclusion
Creating a sensory craft is fun and rewarding. Kids love getting to play with the materials and explore textures and colors. For the Fourth of July, you can make several crafts perfect for holiday celebrations, including playdough and moon sand. Subscribe to the blog to stay up to date on more fun boredom busters for homeschoolers this summer.
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