What do you do with a bored child. You don't want to just turn on the TV, but if you have to read 'The Little Engine That Could' one more time, you might just go insane. So, what can you do? You could sit down and make a simple craft with your little one. You and your child will both enjoy this special time together and you can both express your creativity. It's a great way for you to spend quality time with your child. Here are three great ideas to get you started.

Make Sockpuppets Together What do you do with all those single left-over socks whose counterparts were eating by the washing machine or the dryer? You make sock puppets out of them of course. I love this craft idea because you keep your child entertained while you make the puppets together, and she ends up with a new toy that will keep her busy for quite some time after you are done making the puppet.

Puppets are also a great way for your preschooler to express her ideas and how she views the world around here. They are a great way to spark your child's imagination, plus they are very easy to make. All you need is a sock, and various crafting supplies to turn it into a puppet. Glue or sew two buttons on as eyes, then leave it up to your child to decide what this puppet is going to be and how it should be decorated. The two of you can add some hair, glue in a red felt tongue and of course give it the appropriate accessories. A princess puppet would of course need a crown made out of aluminum foil or construction paper. The only limit is your imagination (or that of your child).

Collage Craft Idea Most of the preschoolers I know love to cut things out and use glue.Why not use this to keep your child busy making a collage. You don't need much for this activity, just some old magazines, a large piece of paper, and of course scissors and glue. Of course you could also add some crayons to the mix to let your child draw around the glued-on pictures.

Start by handing your child some magazine pages and then just let her cut out whatever she would like to include in the collage. Next, let her glue them on the piece of paper. After the glue had a chance to dry, the two of you can further decorate your collage with markers or crayons. Don't forget to hang the piece of art up when you're all done.

Fun Crafts You Can Make With Paper Plates One of the things that you can find in almost any home is paper plates and they make a great basis for quite a few different crafts. There's so much you can do with something as simple as a paper plate, some markers or crayons and a few other crafting supplies.

The first idea is to make masks out of the plates. Start by cutting two holes for the eyes, then let your child decorate the mask by drawing on it or gluing yarn as hair, or construction paper shapes as ears etc. They can be animals, favorite cartoon characters or any creature they can dream up.

Another favorite of ours is to recreate food items on the plate.Use tan yarn as spaghetti that's then covered with a piece of red construction paper (the sauce). Glue the spaghetti and sauce on the plate, then draw some 'cheese' on with a yellow crayon. Or hand your child a little bit of alphabet cereal and ask them to make a bowl (or better plate) of alphabet soup. Encourage older kids to spell their name or even small sentences.

For more great parenting advice, visit our parenting blog. If you would like more fun craft ideas delivered to you email inbox, along with tips, recipes, product reviews and more join our online parenting magazine today!