The 8 Best Craft Kits for Kids in 2021

Best Overall: Crayola 140pc Inspiration Art Set with Case

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For kids, arts and crafts are all about thinking creatively and exploring color and texture, all while fine-tuning motor skills. As proud as children are of their final product, young ones will also enjoy the process of creating art: the feel of fuzzy or prickly chenille stems between their fingers, the snip when they cut through different materials and the pleasure dipping their hands into a tub of colorful pompoms, sequins or beads to pick the just-right one for the current project. For maximum creativity, look for a kit with a variety of kid-friendly materials and no rules, like this kit one for kids ages 3 and up, which includes everything from beads to felt to chenille stems and kid-safe scissors. This kit makes a great gift for a young one who’s ready to flex her creative muscles!

Best Knitting: Cra-Z-Art® Shimmer 'n Sparkle™ Cra-Z-Knitz™ Ultimate Designer Knitting Station

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There’s nothing more stylish than wearing your own custom-created hats, scarves, leg warmers, and more—and nothing more fun for your little fashionista than DIYing them. This kit, perfect for beginning knitters, comes with a round loom and a square loom, a hook and a needle (both kid-friendly and plastic), four different types of yarn (150 yards of acrylic and 15 yards each of specialty, glitter metallic and eyelash yarn), and a desk that neatly holds all the supplies. They’ll have just as much fun learning to knit and purl as they will wearing all their new accessories. Maybe you’ll even get a scarf out of it! Recommended for kids 6+.

Best Paper Art: Gamenote Colorful Kids Origami Kit

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Origami may look like a complicated art, but this kit breaks it down into easy to follow steps. The process starts with its colorful double-sided paper that’s marked with features of the animal or object your child is creating (a butterfly’s wings, a puppy’s nose) that make it easy for them to see what they’re making—and that they’re following the instructions, which are illustrated in the accompanying book, correctly. The kit comes with 108 high-quality, eco-friendly papers that have 54 patterns (two pieces of paper for each) plus ten practice papers. Recommended for kids 5+.

Best for Elementary Schoolers: Hey Clay Dinos

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This craft takes something kids already know and love—playing with clay—and turns it into an interactive learning STEM activity. The kit comes with 18 cans of non-toxic colorfast clay that they can mold into one of six dinosaurs: the fearful T-rex, gentle stegosaurus, fan-favorite triceratops or more. Sound complicated? It’s not once you download the accompanying app that plays interactive 3D step-by-step instructions. They’ll learn to roll and mold various shapes, create a variety of textures, and fashion different facial features. The clay dries in 24 hours, no baking required—once it’s set they can play with their new dinosaur toys. Kits are also available for bugs, birds, aliens, and animals.

Best with Stickers: StickTogether USA Map

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Part sticker craft, part paint by numbers, StickTogether kits come with a coded poster and sticker sheets that tell your child which color goes with which letter on the poster. Though it looks tricky, children as young as five can do it—picking up the stickers and placing them down is a good workout for their fine motor skills. It will take a group of three to five kids about two hours to finish one; adults are encouraged to get involved too. Worried about sticky fingers? Each kit includes 5 percent more stickers than you’ll need to finish, just in case. We like the USA map since it offers opportunities to learn geography and history, but they offer a range of fun options including a unicorn and 100th day of school countdown. Recommended for kids 5+.

Best with Paint: Color Crayz Kids Art Set

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Is your little Picasso or Frieda Kahlo ready to graduate from washable paints to the real thing? This affordable kit has everything they’ll need to artistically express themselves, including:

12 vibrant non-toxic acrylic vibrant paint colors, a mixing tray palette, five paintbrushes of varying sizes, six 8 x 10 100 percent cotton art canvases, a waterproof smock with three front pockets, and a miniature easel all packaged in a portable, zip-top storage bag. Challenge your child to paint portraits, landscapes still lives, or whatever it is that inspires them. Painting is shown to boost their self-confidence and social skills, too. Recommended for kids 7+.

Best with Food: Real Cooking Chocolate Pen

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Encourage their inner Willy Wonka with this easy-to-use Chocolate Pen. As the name suggests, it’s a pen that writes in chocolate. Kids can doodle freeform or create cute chocolate confections with one of the 40 molds of things like butterflies, owls, or cherries (trays are included). It comes with a melting tray that plugs into a USB port and four packs of chocolate. When you need refills, pick up any type of melting chocolate. (Adult supervision is recommended for the melting process depending on the age of your child.) The candies harden in minutes so they can enjoy their tasty treats almost immediately. The auto-fill pen runs on two AA batteries. Recommended for kids 6+.