SEN Resources Blog reviews Sequin Art craft projects. Georgina has started the Special Educational Needs Resources Blog to share her thoughts and recommendations of good learning activities to try at home for children with Special Educational Needs. She is a qualified teacher with a BSc (Hons) in Medical Sciences and a Post Graduate Diploma in Vulnerable Learners and Inclusion.
Here is what Georgina and the SEN Resources Blog think about our sparkly craft projects.
We have found the most wonderful craft resource this fortnight: Sequin Art. If you’ve not seen these sets before, have a read because we think they are absolutely fantastic and provide a whole array of benefits to children from developing concentration and patience to fine motor skills.
We’ve been fortunate enough to try out a couple of Sequin Kits with the children and we have genuinely found a new, very relaxing and fun, hobby that I hope we will continue.
Sequin Art kits enable you to create beautiful, sparkly pictures by positioning sequins in the designated places for the picture.
The kits are suitable for a whole range of ages. Most of the sets require you to push pins through sequins to position them in place, but for young children (or anyone who would prefer not to use pins) you can buy their ‘Pin-Free‘ sets- that allow you to easily push the sequins directly onto the base without the need for pins.
Relaxing Hobby– We particularly loved how relaxing Sequin Art is. We enjoyed completing it with the children, chatting as we pinned the sequins and taking our time. It’s a brilliant, therapeutic and calming (screen-free!) activity. It wasn’t just the children who benefitted from it, I personally felt relaxed too from spending time creating the sequin art with them.
Improves Patience & Concentration– In a world full of fast-paced activities, Sequin Art is a real breath of fresh air. We are always busy and often rush through activities but what’s wonderful about Sequin Art is you can’t rush it. It requires patience, concentration and time..and in doing so teaches children (and their grown-ups!) the beauty of slowing down and enjoying an activity. It’s not something you can complete easily in a couple of hours, it requires you to stick at it. We truly observed it improving the children’s ability to concentrate for longer periods of time and be patient about achieving the end result- very important skills for us all!
Beautiful End Result– The children were so proud of their sequin art creations- and rightly so. The effect of the sparkly different coloured sequins is beautiful and they make great art to go on the wall! We’re buying a frame to pop ours in to put on the wall as they look so great. The range of Sequin Art designs also means there’s something for everyone. We loved that Sequin Art has also created a kit, in association with ‘Toy like Me’ with an image of a wheelchair-using fairy– enabling children who use wheelchairs to feel included and to help develop their self-esteem.
Differentiated– It’s great that Sequin Art can be accessed and enjoyed by a range of abilities. Their simplest kits are Pin-Free, so much less fiddly, but still provide an opportunity to create a beautiful sequin image using the push pen to put the sequins onto the peg board. We tried out the Owl version of this with the children and loved the finished article!
The next ‘level’ or Range of kits are their Red Range. These are the simplest of their kits with push pins and the background is pre-printed with the coloured circles to make it easier. Here’s our Unicorn from this set that we had great fun creating.
I must admit, although it’s trickier we loved the Blue Range the most, these are the ones with a velvet background and a separate sheet to show you which coloured sequin to put where. It took a lot of concentration to keep remembering which sequin went in which place but it was wonderful watching the children develop their ability to complete it. The finished Sequin Art was stunning too.
We’ve also read that they have a Craft Teen Range that has more modern images and a 3D Range– whereby you pin sequins to a polystyrene model.
Develops Fine Motor Skills– Fine Motor Activities like this help to build the tiny muscles in the hands and fingers that are needed to learn to write, do buttons and use cutlery for example (find out more about Fine Motor Skills here) Sequin Art is a novel, fun way of practising Fine Motor Skills whilst creating a beautiful piece of art.
Great Intervention/Club Activity– We found it was a brilliant resource for at home, but as a former SENDCO (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Coordinator) it struck me that these would make brilliant resources for school- perhaps as a group activity to promote relaxation and stress release. Allowing children to come and sit down quietly and have a go at completing part of it when they are feeling anxious etc.
