Ask any well-meaning, stressed out parent, keeping the children busy at all times and keeping them out of trouble is really a difficult proposition. What with all the energy that the young ones have and all the responsibilities that we have, keeping the children busy in good activities is a tough act to pull. Thank God, the Internet is here to offer a few solutions to the ‘issue’.

Tap into the power of the Internet to find a 21st Century spin on traditional craft ideas.

Glitter, glue and brightly coloured paper used to define the crafts of childhood. Now you can easily round out this traditional repertoire with the Web’s bountiful selection of colouring pages to download printable cards to personalize and blueprints for all sorts of crafty creations. With a few tricks up your virtual sleeve, you’ll soon be getting the kids to transform that odd tongue depressor, extra bit of tempera paint, pompoms, googly eyes, and scraps of felt into a seasonal masterpiece in no time.

There is the web site FamilyFun http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/season/  the online version of the print magazine. Fun is a site that has activities for children by the season, festival and the occasion. And FamilyFun does really well to all this and much more. Parties, recipes, games and printables are the main links here. Just roll the cursor and you will find attractive options like printable cards, games and puzzles in the ‘Printables’ section.

Apart from the fun and activities, arts and crafts are what we are here to get for children. And for this the best place to be is KinderArt http://www.kinderart.com/ . Now, I was never one of those top students in the arts class, come to think of it, I wasn’t in any! But from the looks of this site, had this been around at my time, I would certainly have managed a few 80 plus marks. The largest collection of free art lessons and education, the aim here at this site has always been to make art lessons and educational information accessible to people around the world. In addition to the thousands of free art lesson plans, you get printable activity pages, art kitchen, educational links and articles, early childhood education resources and much more.

At the same time, visitors are encouraged to share their experiences, questions, comments and ideas. The result is a wonderful variety of lesson plans and educational tips complete with an online children’s art gallery.

What began in 1997 as a few helpful ideas for teachers and parents, has since grown into an enormous collection of resources featuring thousands of tried and tested free lesson plans, ideas and resources which have been contributed by people from around the world.

Another very interesting site, though very little to do with the culture we live in, is Dave’s snowflake page http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/dstredulinsky/kids_patterns.html.

This site contains scanned images of paper snowflakes that have been cut out of ordinary writing and computer paper with small scissors. During Christmas, paper snowflakes, that can be printed from here, are used to decorate Christmas trees, windows, furniture and doorways. If handled with car the snowflakes can be used over and over for many years. And with a little creative thinking, you can even make it snow in your house, in May! It’ll be a little heavy on the paper though.

If it is more of the winter stuff that you are looking for, then Winter Crafts for Kids is the place to be http://www.enchantedlearning.com/crafts/winter/ . These crafts projects are for preschool, kindergarten and elementary school children. The crafts use materials found around the house, like egg cartons, cardboard, paper, boxes, string, crayons, paint, glue, etc. Make a cute snowman decoration from two paper plates or make a fireplace from two brown paper grocery bags and red tempera paint.

Lastly we go to Kid Domain http://www.kidsdomain.com/holiday/fall/ . Now this place is loaded with ideas, activities and a whole lot more. Easy recipe ideas (easily my favourite), print and play, and outside activities. These along with ideas from the craft expert Amanda Formaro, who tells parents how to make a collector box to hold your child’s treasures. Another interesting stop at the site is the Salt Dough Leaf Magnets. You how magnets are important for kids; a thing to hold your latest creation, completed in the painting class, on the fridge and for the whole family to see. Well, here you can create your own magnets with the help of a few things at home, from the market and with the help of a little imagination.

So, there we go. Sites with ideas that really keep the children busy, on school days as well as off school days. Just make sure to have that telephone line disturbance free and the Internet hours stocked well in advance.