When considering crafts for children, we generally picture paper, glue, scissors, and a great deal of mess on the table.

Digital forms can also be used for crafts.

Suppose you ask a child to invent a fictional animal. The child decides on its appearance, its habitat, its food, and what makes it unique. Then they bring this idea to life by using a drawing app, Scratch, or even an AI tool.

They may create ‘Puffalo’, a small creature that lives in the clouds and blows out colored bubbles from its ears whenever someone feels sad.

What I enjoy about this type of activity is that the technology itself is not the important thing; the child is still imagining, making decisions, designing, telling a story, and solving small creative problems as they go.

The point is that the last piece of craftsmanship needn’t remain stationary.

It is capable of moving, speaking, reacting, and telling a story.

It is this aspect that interests me about digital crafting; it shifts screen time from passive consumption to active creation.

And maybe that is a useful question to ask whenever we give kids access to technology: Are they only using it, or are they creating something from it?