If your kid is bored being stuck at home or has free time, now is one of the best times for them to learn a valuable craft or skill. In this article, I will explain why online craft classes are a great way to learn a new skill. I will also refer to the online craft classes that are the best in my opinion.
We have previously written about the benefits of helping your child to start a kid business.
A lot of kid businesses start off as an interest in a craft or skill. Common crafts or skills that kids can turn into a business include baking, jewelry-making, photography, slime-making, sewing and web design.
When combined with business smarts, these kinds of skills can really take off and earn your kids money.
Nevertheless, I believe that it’s not important if your kid can make any money or not in their first business. What is important is that they develop a genuine passion in entrepreneurship and learn a few things along the way.
Of course, you want to make sure that your kid doesn’t lose too much of your money too! So give them a budget or business allowance.
How Do You Develop Your Kid’s Craft Skills?
What happens if your kid develops an interest in a craft or business where you, as the parent, have no knowledge or skills? How can you help your kid?
You could find them a mentor or pay for craft classes. However, if you can’t find a mentor or your kids are unable to attend classes, a good alternative is online craft classes.
These classes can help to inspire your kids to entrepreneurial pursuits and to upskill themselves.
Benefits of Online Craft Classes
Previously, I didn’t even know that such online craft classes existed. I only found out about them during the COVID-19/Coronavirus lockdown. These online craft classes exceeded my expectations.
Here are some of the benefits of online craft classes compared to physical location-based classes.
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Huge variety of crafts to choose from
These online websites have a huge variety of skills to choose from. Unlike a one-off craft summer camp that normally only teaches a few select crafts, these websites often have more than a thousand different classes.
Having access to a variety of classes is a good way for your kid to try out different things before making a decision as to what they really want to learn.
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Watch from the comfort of your home
The great thing about online craft classes is that your kid can watch them from the comfort of your home, as many times as they want. There is no need to drop them off at a physical class.
Online craft classes are especially useful if you and your kid are stuck at home or a location-based class is not available. It is also great for younger kids if they are not yet ready to attend physical classes by themselves.
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Affordable
Most of these websites also provide a subscription membership model that allows you to access all classes for a small fee every month, often the equivalent amount you would pay for one single location-based class.
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Clear videos, templates/recipes & insider tips
The featured experts provide a ton of insider tips and they film every aspect of the creation process. The videos are filmed professionally and clearly, and they come with recipes and templates.
More importantly, these classes are so enjoyable to watch that my 3 year old sat enthralled for more than an hour watching the baking classes. After watching a few myself, I understood why. The videos are interesting and the baking results looked absolutely delicious.
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Convenience
Apart from the fact that you have access to thousands of classes, recipes and templates from your computer, most of the videos also provide links to products that the experts use, which are often sold conveniently at their web store.
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Shared access for the whole family
Another great thing about online craft classes is that you can share it between your kids (if you have more than one kid) or you yourselves can access it too. If you have more than one child, each child can choose what classes they want to watch. Even better, your kids may enjoy watching and learning together. If so, they may be inspired to create a business together too.
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Special discounts
These online craft classes often have special discount agreements with popular craft stores like Joann.
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Teach your kids to create, rather than consume
I now think that instead of buying your kids toys that they ignore after a week, I would recommend that you consider these online craft classes as gifts for kids on their birthday or Christmas. Why not encourage them to learn a useful skill rather than be a consumer?
So, if you are looking to expand your kid’s skills or your kid is serious about entrepreneurship, then I recommend that you check out these online craft classes.
Below are my top three recommendations for the best websites for online craft classes.
Best Online Craft Classes
Creativebug has one of the widest range of craft classes I have seen, ranging from ceramics, book-binding, canning to leather jewelry-making. Their classes come with downloadable patterns, templates and recipes.
But what I especially love about Creativebug is that they have specific kid classes, grouped according to age. They have classes for kids starting from 5+ years and classes for kids who are 8+ years. The kinds of crafts they teach for kids include creating slime, origami and making Easter bunny baskets.
Currently, they have a special where you can access 50 classes for free or get a 2 month free trial. If you decide that you want to confirm your purchase, here is a special link to get 50% off their membership.
Bluprint used to be called Craftsy Unlimited.
This website hosts a whole range of pure craft classes including baking, cooking, woodworking, gardening, quilting, sewing, painting, photography and jewelry-making.
Besides the classes, they also sell the tools that they themselves recommend for use. It’s an easy one-stop shop for anyone lacking time to research or go shopping at their local store.
Bluprint has a very simple monthly subscription model.
To access all classes, the monthly subscription is $14.99 per month. Bluprint often has specials on their membership so you should check it often.
Creative Live also has a wide range of craft classes ranging from typography, cake decorating, cross-stitching to floral design.
But Creative Live goes beyond crafts.
It also covers finances, self-improvement, business, social media, audio engineering, WordPress, UX and podcasting.
This means that your child can not only pick up craft skills but also business skills on this site.
What I also like about Creative Live is that they host live classes at no additional cost. These classes are listed on their homepage.
You can sign up for a specific set of classes which costs around $100 for the whole lot, or get access to all classes for $39 per month or $200 annually. Just like the rest, Creative Live often has discounts on its memberships too.
As of the date of writing this, Creative Live has a 50% deal off their Creator Pass or 40% off site-wide until the end of April 2020.
Masterclass has a more limited range of craft classes but what makes this website stand out is that they have instructors from some of the best names in the business like Gordon Ramsay and Thomas Keller in cooking, Christina Aguilera in singing, Malcolm Gladwell and R.L. Stine in writing, Serena Williams in tennis and Gary Kasparov in chess.
If you have been wanting access to these famous experts, Masterclass is the website for you. They currently have a limited-time offer of $180 for access to all their classes for 2 people. Alternatively, you can purchase a single class for $90.
I personally think that which website you choose depends a lot on whether they have the kinds of crafts that your kid is interested in, and whether it is age appropriate for their level of capability.
I hope that these classes will help make your kid’s free time at home productive, entrepreneurial and creative!
If you want to help your kid to create a clear vision for what they want in their future, then a Vision Board is a creative and effective way to help your kid do that.
