Paper Plate Art
Paper plates are a must have for any summer camp, preschool or even home craft supply closet. The endless possibilities of fun and educational crafts are well, endless. Here are some paper plate kids crafts we have done over the years. I hope that the extra plates from summer BBQ, church picnics and cookouts can be used to make something fun.
Paper Plate Turkey
Paper Plate Tadpole
My son has been talking a lot about tigers lately, so it was no shock to me when I asked him what he wanted to make for art and he replied “Tiger?”. He loved making this and even though we didn’t cut eyes out, he has been playing with it like a mask , pretending to be a ferocious tiger!
- Gather your materials. You will need some orange and black paper, a paper plate, some orange paint ( or mix red and yellow like we did), scissors, googley eyes, and glue.
- Start by mixing your orange paint
- Paint your plate- we started out with the dainty brush,
but finished with hands.
- While our child is painting, cut a nose and mouth.
- As well as some black stripes – we used 8
- And ears out of the orange paper.
- Add the stripes on either side by first adding glue
- Then the paper.
- Next add the mouth and nose.
- My son was begging to add the eyes before we finished the stripes, so we did it before we did the head stripes, it doesn’t really matter what order you do the gluing in.
- Add the stripes on the top of the head too.
- Next up, the ears, add two stripes on each ear.
- Glue the ears on and let everything dry.
“If You See A Tiger” by Richard Powell is a cute book for babies and young toddlers. It’s a lift the flap book that encourages your child to do what the book suggests if you come across various animals. My son really liked this book when we read it a year ago when he was 18 months old.
“The Loudest Roar” by Thomas Taylor was given to me at my baby shower, recommended by a friend who’s son loved it. Sure enough my son does too, especially if I roar really really loudly along with Clovis the little tiger with the loudest roar of all. It’s a good book when toddlers are learning about when we can be loud and when we should be quiet.
15 Comments »
- Gather your materials. You will need a paper plate, 4 pipe cleaners, glue , 2 googley eyes and some color coding labels ( they are circle stickers found in the office supply section and way cheaper than stickers).
- Start by handing your child some stickers and the plate – and let them go for it. After my son did about 3 he said “glue” so I asked him if he could stick a red one, then a green… and he got back into it and covered it with no more prodding.
- Grab the glue ( or the stick on googley eyes) and add some where you want to put the eyes.
- Add the eyes.
- Let dry.
- Once they are dry enough to handle, poke 2 holes in the edge of the plate
and thread a pipe cleaner through, zig zagging both ends,
Repeat for all 4 .
Books !
“Diary of a Spider “ by Doreen Cronin is a very clever book with some pretty funny bits of humor that I laughed my way through. It was too long to hold my son’s attention but older preschoolers would love it. The overall theme is that spiders aren’t all nasty and that they have fears too, a great lesson for kids !
Mess Free
Spider Cookies!
- Gather your materials. You will need some sandwich cookies , shoe string licorice, some gummy candy and /or jelly beans.
- Open up two cookies and discard the sides with no yummy middle icing.
- Cut your shoe string licorice into 8 legs of the same length and stick them in the white icing on one cookie.
- Pop the other open cookie on top ( so it’s double stuffed now… you could also just use double stuffed to start with) .
- Cut some green gummy candy into small circles. I am using sour apple licorice.
- Pop it on top of the cookie to make eyes.
- Add small bits of the shoe string licorice for the pupil.
- OR you can cut a red jelly belly in half and pop those on for eyes. They stick well if you lick the bottom ( so you may not want to do this version if you are serving these to guests) .
- OR you can add green gummy candy for the eyes and top it with the very end of a red jelly belly.
- Enjoy.
Although the whole frog life cycle may be a bit sophisticated for very young preschoolers , they are definitely old enough to understand that a tadpole turns into a frog. This is an easy and adaptable activity, if you need a frog activity to follow up click here for a cute frog puppet!
- Gather your materials. You will need some green paint, a paper plate, some red paper, a googly eye and some streamers (paper cut in strips would work well too). If you want you can also use some sparkles- this seems to be the only thing my son wants to do at art time lately!
- Start by painting your paper plate, we are using a sponge but a brush, or even finger painting would work.
- While your child paints cut some streamers into 6-8 inch pieces. I cut 4 but ended up only using 3.
- When they are finished painting let the paper plate dry.
- Hand them the streamers and have them paint them , we used roller paints on each.
- Add glitter if you want.
- Let the streamers dry.
- While everything is drying, cut some lips, I made a heart and cut off the bottom.
- Now when things require drying time you run the risk of loosing your little artists, my son happily said “mama you glue!” so I did. He was just as proud of his project in the end , but you can also put it aside and complete it when the mood strikes!
- Add the glue for the streamers.
- Add the streamers- I added 4 , but took one off. Also this picture shows them all spread out, I ended up grouping them together to make one tail.
- Add the lips
- Add the eye and let dry!
Song
Five green and speckled frogs
sat on a speckled log
eating the most delicious bugs
yum yum !
One jumped into the pool
where it was nice and cool
now there are 4 green speckled frogs
ribbit ribbit!
Keep going until no frogs left!
Books!
“From Tadpole to Frog” by Wendy Pfeffer is another gem from the “Let’s- Read-And-Find-Out” series. It goes into great detail without offering too much for young readers. When I was reading it to my 2 year old, I skipped some pages, it’s a little long for him still but 3-5 year olds are perfect age for this non fiction book. The illustrations are interesting and kept my wiggly man into the book when the text went above his head.
13 Comments »
Santa is a good guy, even if your child is terrified of the Santa at the mall they may enjoy this craft. My son won’t get within 10 feet of the big guy but loved making this one! The cotton balls add some sensory discovery as well!
- Gather your materials. You will need a a small paper plate, 2 pieces of construction paper- one red and one white ( I used natural colored and it looks a little funny), some cotton balls, googly eyes, glue, scissors and a red pom pom.
- Start by drawing a large U shape on the plain construction paper. This actually took me two tries. I used the paper plate as a guide for how wide it should be. Cut out.
- Add glue all over the beard. Make sure there is a blank spot where no cotton balls will be, for the mouth.
- Add the cotton balls. Talk to toddlers and young preschoolers about it being soft. If they went to see Santa ask if they touched his beard and how it felt.
- While they add the cotton balls cut out a small red mouth out of the red paper.
- Glue on the mouth. Set the beard to dry.
- Grab the paper plate and glue on the eyes
and a pom pom nose.
- Cut out a hat from the red paper, add glue on the bottom edge and top of the point.
- Add cotton balls to the hat. Let dry.
Santa is his name o !
There is a man all dressed in red,
and Santa is his name o!
S A N T A
S A N T A
S A N T A
And Santa is his name o!
Continue with :
*He has a loud and jolly laugh
and Santa is his name o!
*He lives with elves at The North Pole
and Santa is his name o!
*His Reindeer pull his magic sleigh
and Santa is his name o!
*He brings you toys if you are kind
and Santa is his name o!
