Archive for the ‘animal crafts’ Category

Paper plate spider web

Thursday, August 30th, 2007

This is a quick Halloween craft in which kids get to watch what happens as marble roll around on the paper plate and make cool patterns. This technique is also fun when you use a variety of paint colors. Besides Halloween, this craft could be used with the movie or book Charlotte’s Web.

What You Need: sturdy, white, high-rimmed paper plate (such as Chinet), black tempera paint, 4 to 6 marbles, plastic spider ring.
spider web plate supplies

How You Make It: Apply many tiny (1/8″ or so) dots of black paint scattered around the paper plate. (Adult might need to do this for the youngest kids.) Child places marbles in plate and gently rolls them around to create web-like designs. Once dry, place or glue spider ring in plate. You can cut off the ring part if you’d like.

spider web plate

Safety Alert: Marbles can pose a choking hazard. Only do this craft with children who are developmentally ready to play with small objects.

Paper bag black cat for Halloween

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007

The neat thing about this craft is it can be a black cat for Halloween, a regular cat for anytime or, with longer ears, an Easter bunny! You can fill it with treats or party favors.

What You Need: brown paper lunch bag, black tempera paint, glue, two cotton balls, two googly eyes, scrap pink construction paper, light-colored gel pen or paint, paint brush, scissors.
black cat paper bag supplies

How You Make It: Use scissors to cut two ear-shaped notches and rounded cat head shape about 6″ from bottom of paper bag. (Adult may need to do the cutting for younger children.) Paint entire bag, or just the front, black. Let paint dry. Glue on googly eyes, two cotton balls for muzzle and triangle shapes for nose and ears. Use gel pen or white paint to draw whiskers.

paper bag black cat craft

Paper plate fish with bingo ink daubers

Wednesday, August 15th, 2007

You can buy felt-topped ink daubers especially made for kid crafts, or you can do what we did: Borrow Gram’s bingo daubers!

What You Need: Two thin paper plates (we used 6″), craft or bingo daubers, large googly eye, glue
paper plate fish craft

How You Make It: You can use the daubers before or after you cut and assemble the paper plate parts. Cut fins out of one paper plate and glue to other paper plate as shown, or however you’d like. Cut out triangle “mouth.” Glue on googly eye.

paper plate fish

Pink bunny clothespin craft

Thursday, August 9th, 2007

What You Need: Flat (“no-roll”) style clothespin, pink acrylic paint, white felt, small white pom pom, two small googly eyes, black marker, scissors, glue.
clothespin bunny rabbit craft supplies

How You Make It: Paint clothespin pink and let dry. Cut thin strips from felt for inside “ears” and glue to long ends of clothespin. Glue on eyes and pom pom nose. Draw on mouth with black marker. You could also glue another pom pom on the back for a rabbit cotton tail!

clothespin bunny craft

Paper towel roll snake

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

This is a craft and a fun toy all in one! Preschoolers design their snake and then they can take it for a “walk” by pulling it along with the yarn.

What You Need: paper towel tube, scissors, tempera or poster paints, googly eyes, scrap of red felt, red yarn, glitter glue, paintbrush, glue.
paper towel roll snake supplies

How You make It: Adult cuts the paper towel roll into six sections of similar width. Preschooler creatively paints the sections, adding glitter glue and other details. Once paint is dry, help preschooler apply googly eyes and glue red felt forked tongue to the “head” tube section. Loop yarn around last section and tie; thread the yarn through the rest of the section, leaving it loose at the head as a leash to pull the snake.

Paper towel roll snake