Free Preschool Crafts

Baby chick from footprint

The child’s own footprint forms the base for this cute yellow chick! This craft is great for Easter, but would also work for a farm unit at school.

What You Need: Yellow paint (nontoxic washable); paintbrush; sheet of white or cream construction paper; scrap of orange cardstock; black marker; yellow feather; glue.

How to Make It: Help child paint a clean foot yellow. (Alterative: step into a shallow tray with yellow paint in it.) Press foot onto construction paper and lift away slowly, without wiggling. Let dry. The heel is the chick’s head. Use black marker to add eye. Cut triangle shape from orange cardstock and glue to “face” for beak. Glue feather to body. If you’d like, children could glue birdseed or Easter grass to the paper as well.

Shamrock placemat

This craft is super simple: All you need is paper, a bingo dauber and a green marker or paint. But these St. Patrick’s Day shamrock is a fun way to help preschoolers practice groups of three. You can even laminate the results and use it as a St. Patrick’s Day party placemat!

What You Need: Light green or white construction paper; green bingo dauber; green marker, crayon or paint and brush.

How to Make It: Use bingo dauber to stamp clovers (3 circles together) all over the paper. Then, use marker, crayon or paint to add stems.

St. Patrick's Day wand

Let kids paint, color or use markers all over dessert-sized paper plates to make this fun clover wand for St. Patrick’s Day.

What You Need: 3 dessert-sized paper plates; green paint, crayons or markers; gold glitter; Stapler; drinking straw (green if available); green crepe paper streamers.

How to Make It: Color all 3 paper plates green. If paint was used, sprinkle gold glitter on while still wet. Otherwise, you’ll need a little glue. Adult staples paper plates together in shamrock shape and then staples to straw. Tie and/or staple green streamer to straw.

Coffee filter shamrock

Preschoolers can experiment with how colors blend (“Yellow and blue makes green!”) as well as have fun squirting water and watching the coffee filter absorb the dye on this St. Patrick’s Day clover.

What You Need: 1 coffee filter; scissors; yellow and blue liquid food coloring; squirt bottle with water; small paintbrushes.

How to Make It: Put down several layers of newspaper or paper towels. Adult precuts shamrock shape on coffee filter (You can trace one and cut several layers at once). Provide children with yellow and blue liquid food coloring, slightly diluted. Children can use small paintbrushes, cotton swabs or eye droppers to combine yellow and blue dye on coffee filter. Once the child is satisfied with the result, allow him or her to squirt the coffee filter and watch the colors combine to make green as the coffee filter gets wet. Let shamrock dry.

Paper plate bird

Let kids explore their creativity and create an entire flock of birds using paper plates, pipe cleaners, cardstock scraps and paper punches. I saw this idea in Woman’s World magazine.

What You Need: 1 sturdy, colored paper plate (we used dessert size);  1 or 2 pipe cleaners; cardstock scraps; paper punches; googly eye; glue and/or tape.

How to Make It: Cut paper plate in half and then cut one of the halves into three triangles. Use scissors to make “fringe” for tailfeathers and wing. Tape pipe cleaners (however long you’d like your bird’s legs and neck to be) as shown. Bend them if you want, for crooked neck or legs. Tape paper plate triangle to top of neck and add beak cut from cardstock. Glue on plastic eye. Cut feet and tape to legs. Punch out shapes and glue to body.