Category: Craft Projects

Pumpkin Spice Paint

10/27/2020

I recently attended a make and take session and one of the things we made was pumpkin spice paint. It is super easy to make but I felt the recipe we used was a bit too runny so I modified it a little.

To make the paint I put three packets of unflavored gelatine into a jar along with 1 cup of boiling water and mixed the two together until the gelatine was dissolved. I added yellow and red food coloring and stirred until I had an orange color I was happy with.

The last step was to add the pumpkin pie spice into the paint. I just continued to shake some in until I got the scent that I wanted. Everyone loved how the paint smelled and were very excited to paint with it.

I let the paint cool down which also helped to thicken it. The children then painted large circles on cardstock paper. When they painted they could see the specks of pumpkin spice. We let that paint dry and cut out the circle and glue it on to a sheet of colored cardstock paper. The children cut out a leaf and stem and glue that on the pumpkin. They then glue pumpkin seeds on for extra fine motor work.

You can see a video of our pumpkin spice paint below:

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Giant Scarecrow

9/29/2020

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giant scarecrow craft project for preschool and kindergarten

This is one of our favorite fall craft projects to make!! We do it over a span of two to three days but you can adjust it to fit the needs of your early learners. We use large sheets of construction paper (usually sold right next to the regular sized construction paper) but if you do not want to make giant scarecrows you can scale the project down to make smaller ones.

You can either have the pieces already cut out for younger children to put together or have guide pieces set out for the children to use as a reference for cutting their scarecrow pieces.

You will need to have a head ... hat ... pants ... shirt body ... sleeves ... straw ... eyes and a nose. You will also need to have various colors of tissue paper that has been cut or torn into squares.

Once all of the pieces have been cut out it is time to put them all together. You can put them together any way you wish but I found that we had the most success starting with the head and working our way down.

The hat gets glued at the very top of the head and the shirt body on top of the bottom of the head. You want to make sure to leave enough room to make a face on the head.

The sleeves the next to get glued on and they should be glued behind the shirt body. The sleeves can be angled in any direction.

The pants are glued under the bottom of the shirt. We used three inch long strips of yellow paper glued to the bottom of the hat ... arms ... and legs to represent straw.

We glued the eyes and nose on the scarecrow head and also drew a mouth with a marker. The last step was to glue the tissue paper squares on the scarecrow.

You can see a video of this project below:

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Fall Fine Motor Wreath

9/21/2020

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Fall Tissue Paper Wreath Preshool and Kindergarten Art Project

Once of our favorite super cute fall craft projects is a tissue paper wreath. These are super easy to make but really great for fine motor development. We cut the centers out of paper plates (those just starting to use scissors may need some help). The next step was to cut or tear fall colored tissue paper in to small squares or rectangle shapes.

Fall Tissue Paper Wreath Preschool and Kindergarten Art Project

Children can sort the tissue paper by color if they wish but we just put all of the tissue paper into bowls. The children applied glue to the paper plates and then scrunched up the tissue paper pieces and press them on to the glue.

You can see a video of this activity by clicking below:

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Paper Plate Ladybug

7/6/2020

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Paper Plate Ladybug Craft For Preschool and Kindergarten

We made paper plate ladybugs this week and they turned out super cute. We did this project over a two day period to make sure we had enough time for the paint to dry.

To make the lady you will need red paint ... glue ... scissors ... black construction paper ... wiggles eyes ... and paper plates. We used the thicker chinette brand for our paper plates.

ladybug paper plate craft for preschool and kindergarten

The first step is to paint the back of the paper plates red. You can do this by using a paint and paint brush or a paint dauber. After we painted the plates we let them dry for the rest of the day.

We cut head shapes out of black construction paper and glued them on to the bottom of the paper plates.

The next step was to glue wiggle eyes on the heads. If you do not have wiggle eyes a different color of construction paper such as yellow or blue cut into small circles will work fine.

paper plate ladybug for preschool and kindergarten

We cut circle shapes out of black construction paper and glue them on to the painted paper plate. You can put as many or as little spots on the ladybugs as you want.

We cut black construction paper into 3-4 inch lengths and folded them back and forth (accordion style) for the legs. We glued three on each side of the paper plate.

We hung our ladybugs up around the room. The children got lots of fine motor practice through the use of scissors and gluing pieces together.

You can see a video of this project below:

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Paper Plate Sunflower

5/12/2020

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Paper Plate Sunfower Art Project For Preschool and Kindergarten

One of my favorite theme is gardening and I love having the children make paper plate sunflowers ... they always turn out so cute!!

paper plate sunflower for preschool and kindergarten

We used nine inch paper plates but you could also use the smaller ones. We painted the paper plate yellow using do-a-dot markers (you can also finger paint the plates) and blotted off the extra paint with a paper towel.

After the paint had dried we put glue around the edge of the plate. We pressed on flower petals that we had cut out of yellow tissue paper. We went back and applied more glue and flower petals in the gaps to give it a layered look.

The last step was to apply glue drops to the center of the paper plate and press sunflower seeds on. I encouraged the children to put as many seeds on as possible.

Once the glue dried we hung them up around the room and they look awesome!! I love this project because it really gives the children a chance to work on fine motor development. You can see a video of this project below:

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Paper Plate Gingerbread

12/16/2019

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paper plate gingerbread craft for preschool and kindergarten

We made paper plate gingerbread and they really turned out super cute. Not only did the children enjoy making this project but they also got lots of fine motor practice.

You will need to have:

paper plates (we glued two together)
white yarn
black yarn or pipe cleaner
brown paint
paint brush
scissors
black and pink craft foam or construction paper
white sequins (optional)

The first step is to paint the paper plate brown and let it dry. While the paper plate is drying we cut out two circles from the black craft foam and two from the pink. You can also use construction or cardstock paper if you do not have craft foam.

We glue the black circles on for the gingerbread eyes and formed a smile shape with a black pipe cleaner and also glued that on (you can substitue black yarn if you do not have pipe cleaners). We then glue a pink circle on each side of the mouth to from the gingerbread cheeks.

The next step was to apply glue around the edge of the paper plate and press the yarn on to make the gingerbread icing.

We went around the the paper plate twice with the white yarn. To add an optional sparkle we then pressed white iridescent sequins on the glue as well adding more glue dots if we need them.

You can see a video of this project by clicking below: