• Crafts are an ideal way to entertain children at a birthday partyArts and Crafts image by ne_fall_photos from Fotolia.com
  
  Elementary school aged children can be difficult to please, being on the brink of pre-teen years, but still close to childhood. By choosing the right craft projects, however, you can easily straddle these two age groups and provide interesting and "cool" age appropriate entertainment for a birthday party. Choose crafts that will not be too time consuming and intense, as kins strung up on party excitement and sugar may get distracted easily.
  
  

Cupcakes

• Cupcake decorating will save you time on decorating a cake and keep the children entertained as well. Give each child the choice of a plain, unfrosted chocolate or vanilla cupcake. Set up dishes of different colors and flavors of frosting, sugar decorations, candy and cake-writing tools around a table. Allow each child to decorate his own cupcake. Once completed, take a photo of the barrage of unique cupcakes and then allow the children to dig in.
  
  

For Girls

• Even for 10-year-olds, friendship and social circles are all too important. Play into this idea by setting up a friendship bracelet craft table. Provide each child with different colored yarn and beads. Show the girls a basic braiding technique to create the bracelets and how to loop it together into a bracelet when complete. Let them create bracelets for their friends, themselves or both.
  
  

For Boys

• As boys tend to be junior explorers and often in search of adventure inwoods and fields, set up a birthday craft table activity that they can take home in lieu of goody bags. Have the boys craft exploring flashlights that they can personalize. Provide each boy with a pocket-sized flashlight, colored or metallic beads, a satin cord and paint. To help keep track of the flashlight, slide beads onto the cord and attach in a loop to the ring at the end of the flashlight. The flashlight can then hang comfortably from the boy's wrist while he explores. Let the boys paint the mini-flashlights for an added touch of personality.