Activities for after-school clubs and early primary: build, colour and tell stories
In after-school clubs and early primary classes there is a need for activities that can take place indoors, and that both the youngest and the oldest children can join. Here are six ideas where the children build a town, colour a dollhouse and work with maps, measurements and storytelling. They are based on Crateit Town and Crateit Roomies, which are recommended for ages 5-9, and they can be used as a winter activity, a project week or a regular offer.
The parts click together without glue or tools, and an assembly guide is included. Everything comes in uncoloured wood, so the colouring is part of the activity.
Rule the Roundabout
Couch & CrayonsSix activities
1. Project week: build a town
Let the children plan the town on paper, share tasks in groups and build it over several days. Start with Rule the Roundabout or Around The Mountain, and let the route grow with Adventure Track Extension, which has 4 road connectors. Wooden car tracks shows how a track can be built step by step.
2. Colour workshop
Make a colour plan for the town: what colours should the houses have, and what should be details? Use the 3 mm tip for the large surfaces and 1 mm for the details. Playful 3 mm has red, green, yellow, blue, black and white. Read how to colour wooden toys with markers and see all Crateit markers.
3. The rooms of the dollhouse
Couch & Crayons has 145 pieces and two rooms with a living room and a play room, and measures 48 × 52 × 24 cm assembled. Let each group colour and furnish its own room, and put the rooms together into a house. Roomies can also stand in the middle of the town together with Crateit Town.
4. The town newspaper
The children write or draw news from the town: what happened at the station today, and who lived in the house? The newspaper can be hung up next to the town, and a new edition can come out each week.
5. Measure the town
The product pages give the measurements in centimetres. Let the children measure the sets with a ruler and compare with the figures: The Fire Station measures 60 × 28 cm assembled, The Police Station 74 × 29 cm and Rule the Roundabout 80 × 100 cm. How much space does a whole town need, and where can it stand?
6. Build and swap
Divide the children into teams, and let each team build and colour its part of the town. When time is up, swap, so the teams get to play in each other's districts. The sets in Crateit Town fit together across sets.
Fine motor skills in the activities
Fine motor skills are the small, precise movements of hands and fingers. In these activities the fingers are in use when the children click the parts together, colour inside an edge and place small parts. Crateit's product pages say that colouring trains fine motor skills. That is Crateit's own description, not a study. Read more in fine motor play.
For your institution
Do you want to use Crateit in a kindergarten, after-school club or early primary school? Read about Wooden toys for kindergartens, and write to sales@crateit.toys about what you need, and we will get back to you.
If you are a retailer with an account, log in at Crateit B2B. If you want to sell Crateit, you can apply to become a retailer.
Frequently asked questions
What age are the sets for?
Crateit Town and Crateit Roomies are recommended for ages 5-9. The product pages say the sets may be used from age 3, and that children up to age 5 assemble them together with an adult. The age is shown on each product page.
How much space do we need?
The Fire Station measures 60 × 28 cm assembled, the Police Station 74 × 29 cm and Rule the Roundabout 80 × 100 cm. Measure the table or the floor rug before you start.
Can the sets be used together?
Yes. The Crateit Town sets fit together across sets, and Roomies can be combined with Crateit Town, so the dollhouse becomes part of the town.
How do we assemble the sets, and can we get the guide again?
The parts click together without glue or tools, and an assembly guide is included. If the guide is lost, all Crateit assembly guides can be downloaded as PDF on the page Assembly guides.
Do we need markers?
The sets come in uncoloured wood. Crateit markers come with a 1 mm and a 3 mm tip and colour with acrylic paint. They go on layer by layer, so the children can colour over them again when the play changes.
How does our institution order?
Write to sales@crateit.toys about what you need, and we will get back to you. Read more on the page Wooden toys for kindergartens.
