Tag: crafts

Animals

Narwhal Stick Puppet Craft

Jennifer

Puppet crafts are so much fun for preschoolers to make and to play with! Here is a super cute narwhal stick puppet craft that you can make with your little one. Watch as they make their narwhal swim through the sea on the paper plate! This interactive craft is tons of fun and lends itself well to imaginative play.

Supplies Needed:

Narwhal Stick Puppet Craft

How To:

Preschoolers can start this project by painting the paper plate blue using water color paints. Let the plate dry.

Print off the narwhal craft template (free PDF download). Color the narwhal, kelp, starfish, and clam. After coloring, cut along the dotted lines.

Once the plate is dry, an adult can use a box cutter to cut a slit along the smooth center of the plate. The slit in the example is a little less than halfway up the plate. Before slicing, make sure that the craft stick will be able to stick up through the proposed slit and move around. The slit should go all the way along the smooth part of the plate, stopping before both ridged outer edges.

Now that you have colored all of your pictures, glue them onto your plate. Make a nice ocean scene for your narwhal to visit! Check to make sure that all of the pictures are glued down tight so that your narwhal stick puppet doesn’t get stuck under any edges that may be sticking up.

Glue your narwhal to end of a craft stick and let’s play! Slip your puppet through the slit and move your puppet around so that your narwhal can swim in the sea. Read some narwhal stories to go along with your craft!

Animals

Dory and Nemo Stick Puppets

Jennifer
Dory and Nemo Stick Puppets

Dory and Nemo are so cute and fun. Preschoolers and grownups both love these two fish! I created free stick puppet templates of them for children to make. I love stick puppets because they are so easy for preschoolers to make and hold, and are lend themselves well to creative play. Print off my free Dory and Nemo stick puppets  craft template and make your own stick puppets and create lots of fun adventures for Dory and Nemo.

Dory-Nemo-Stick-Puppets-1Download

Supplies Needed:

  • template
  • crayons
  • scissors
  • glue or tape
  • craft stick (I used the jumbo sized craft, but the skinnier one should work just fine)

How To:

This Dory and Nemo stick puppet craft is pretty quick and easy. Print the template — it is a free, downloadable PDF. Color your fish and then cut them out following the dotted circle outlines. Next glue or tape a craft stick to the back of each picture. Once they are dry, let the puppet play begin!

More Crafts

Do you like puppets? My son and I think puppets are a lot of fun! We’ve made quite a few together. Check out some more of our puppet ideas:

Animals

Paper Plate Flounder Craft

Jennifer
paper plate flounder craft
Paper Plate Flounder Craft

Flounders are kind of funny looking fish because you can see both of their eyes at the same time while they are sideways; it makes them look smushed. My son saw a flounder at the aquarium and was intrigued by this weird looking fish. So when I suggested we do a fish art project, he wanted to make a paper plate flounder craft.

Supplies Needed:

– 1 paper plate

-scissors

-stapler (optional)

-glue stick

-tissue paper squares (about 1 inch x 1 inch)

– large googly eyes

-(optional glitter glue)

How To:

-To make your fish, have your child cut out a triangle from the paper plate. This makes it look like the fish’s mouth is open. My son loves being able to use scissors, so he liked this craft.

-Staple the triangle to the back of fish to make a tail. You can always glue the tail on, but then you have to wait for it to dry.

-Now it’s time to decorate the fish! Using the glue stick, glue tissue squares all over the plate to make the fish’s scales.

-Finish your fish by adding googly eyes.

My son thought it needed some sparkle, so he added blue glitter-glue polka dots to his fish.

More Ocean Creatures:

My son and I also made a Toilet Paper Roll Octopus craft and a Spouting Whale craft.

Uncategorized

Flamingo Tissue Paper Craft

Jennifer
Flamingo Tissue Paper Craft

My son and I love flamingos! I recently posted a list of our favorite flamingo books for preschoolers — 8 Great Flamingo Stories — and we made this fun flamingo tissue paper craft to go with our stories. I had all of the supplies on hand, so this was a quick for me to pull together and lots of fun to make!

Supplies Needed:

  • Markers or crayons
  • Pink Tissue Paper
  • Glue stick

How To:

I cut pink tissue paper into 30 1-inch x 1-inch squares for this project. You may need less if your child does not scrunch them up as tightly as we did. If you want, you can cut out 20 and see if you need more as your child glues them on.

Print out the free flamingo coloring sheet. Grab your markers or crayons and color in the flamingo. Color in the whole body just in case you there are gaps in the tissue paper that you can see through.

Once everything is colored, begin scrunching up your tissue paper squares and gluing them onto the flamingo’s body. The tissue paper gives the project a fun feathers effect!

The flamingo looked pretty cute with its tissue paper feathers, but it needed some sparkle. We had left over jewel stickers so we added a few around the flamingo. The stickers were just what we needed are we are so happy with how the flamingo tissue paper craft turned out!

Flamingo Tissue Paper Crafts
Uncategorized

Ballerina Dancer Sticker Craft

Jennifer
Ballerina Dancer Sticker Craft

We got a pack of jewel stickers that came in lots of different shapes and sizes, and these stickers were so pretty that I couldn’t wait to use them. Some of the stickers looked like pearl earnings and I knew that I wanted to use them on something elegant. Originally I was thinking about using them on a mermaid craft, but decided to decorate a ballerina dancer instead! While “craft” might be stretching it a bit, this picture was fun to color and even more fun to cover with stickers. I think this ballerina dancer sticker craft turned out pretty cute!

Supplies Needed:

–ballerina dancer printable (free downloadable PDF)

-markers / crayons / or color pencils

–jewel stickers (Amazon Affiliate link)

How-To:

This ballerina dancer sticker craft is pretty easy: just print, color, and add stickers!

Print out the free ballerina dancer PDF. I used regular printer paper because I was out of cardstock and it held up just fine so don’t worry about what paper you use. Now grab something to color your picture with. We used skinny markers to color ours because some of the confetti was pretty small and I thought crayons would be hard to use. However, use which ever coloring materials you like best!

After you have your picture colored, it is time for stickers! Honestly, adding the pretty, shiny stickers is the best part! We gave our ballerina some earrings (I had to use those cute little pearl stickers) and added a flower to her bun. Then we decorated her tutu and added some sparkles to the middle of the roses. We still had plenty of stickers left, so we added some more stickers around the picture for some extra sparkle.

Animals, Spring

Egg Carton Ladybug Craft

Jennifer

Turn a cardboard egg carton into a cute little ladybug craft! This egg carton ladybug craft requires minimal supplies, is low prep, and tons of fun to make.

egg carton ladybug craft

Supplies Needed:

  • cardboard egg carton
  • scissors
  • nontoxic red and black paint (I like to use Crayola Washable Paints)
  • paintbrush
  • googly eyes
  • black construction paper
  • glue
  • black marker
  • paper plate (optional)

How To:

To make an egg carton ladybug, an adult needs to cut one of the cups off your egg carton to be your ladybug (or cut off several and make a lot of ladybugs!).

Next, set out a paper plate (optional, but I like to have my child paint on top of a paper plate to help catch spills). Now its paint time! Grab a paintbrush and let your child paint the egg carton cup red. Let it dry. Once the red paint is dry, your preschooler can dip their finger into the black paint and add spots to the ladybug. My son loved adding the spots 🙂

While the spots are drying, cut a circle out of black construction paper. We traced a cup on a black paper to make out circle shape. Cut your circle in half — now your have 2 wings!

Glue your wings onto the back of the egg carton ladybug. We glued them slightly askew so that it looked like our bug was about to take flight. My son loves googly eyes, so he added two of those to the front of the egg carton cup. Our ladybug looked kind of grouchy, we used a black marker to draw on a smile to complete the ladybug craft.

Check out my crafts page for more ideas. My son and I also made a cute bug crown that has a ladybug on it, and we made ladybug stick puppet too!

ladybug

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Animals

Cardboard Fuzzy Bear Craft

Jennifer

I love when I can reuse something materials that I have on hand, like cardboard boxes! My preschooler and I turned a piece of a cardboard box into something new — a carboard fuzzy bear craft! Not only did my son have fun, but this project is great way to incorporate different textures into his activities and help him develop fine motor skills!

cardboard fuzz bear craft

Supplies Needed:

  • cardboard
  • brown yarn (or whatever color yarn you like)
  • pompom
  • googly eyes (we used size 1 inch)
  • scissors
  • pen
  • ribbon/cord for hanging
  • white glue
  • tape

How To:

1. Using a pen, I drew a basic bear head shape on part of a cardboard box and cut it out. It is a little more than 4 inches tall.

2. Next, I took some fuzzy brown yarn and cut off a piece that was about 36 inches long. I taped one end of the yarn to the back of the bear and my 3 year-old wound the yarn around the bear to give it “fur.” When he was finished wrapping, I taped the other end of the yarn to back of the bear’s head too.

3. My preschooler picked out yellow googly eyes and a yellow pompom for a nose. The googly eyes were stickers so they were easy to attach. We used white glue to stick on the pompom nose.

4. After the glue was dry, I used my pen to punch a hole in the top of the bear. My son picked out a blue cord and I tied it on so he could hang up his cute, fuzzy bear craft.

My son really wanted to give his bear to his grandfather, so his cardboard fuzzy bear craft ended up being a cute present.

Check out my Crafts Page for more things to make your child!

Animals

Preschool Penguin Theme

Jennifer

Penguins are so cute! Preschoolers are fascinated with these awesome birds so I rounded up books, crafts, a song, and some free worksheets so you can add a penguin theme to your preschool activities!

Preschool Penguin Theme

Everything You Need for Creating a Penguin Theme:

Books

Penguins — 10 books about these adorable birds! My son loves penguins and we have read so many penguin books together. We’ve gathered up a list of our favorites to share with you!

Crafts

–Basic Shapes Penguin: print off the free template, color your pieces, and glue them together to form a penguin!

–Toilet Paper Roll Penguin: turn an empty toilet paper roll into a cute penguin with paint, construction paper, and googly eyes. My son really liked this craft and we have a couple cute little toilet paper roll penguins around our house now!

–Egg Carton Penguins: turn an egg carton into a bunch of roly-poly penguins!

Online

-Watch the Monterey Bay Aquarium penguins on their live Penguin Cam! https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/live-cams/penguin-cam

-Learn about the Gentoo Penguin from this short video by Nat Geo Kids: https://youtu.be/xnu5htZpruE

Song

"Did You Ever See a Penguins?" song

To get the second and third verse and list of the actions, check out my post: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/2022/11/27/penguin-action-rhyme/

Worksheets

–Penguin Counting: count how many pictures are in each box and then circle the number.

-Fill in the missing letters in this penguin alphabet worksheet: PENGUIN ALPHABET MAZE

–P is Penguin: trace the letters in the word PENGUIN and color the picture.

Christmas

Paper Chain Reindeer Craft

Jennifer
Paper Chain Reindeer Craft

This paper chain reindeer craft was easy to make and turned out adorable! It is perfect for preschoolers who want to make Christmas decorations because it doesn’t make much of a mess (outside of glue) and it can be assembled pretty quickly so they don’t lose interest in the activity. For more Christmas crafts, check out my crafts page: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/preschool-winter-crafts/

Supplies Needed:

Paper chain reindeer craft supplies
  • 1 piece of brown construction paper
  • scissors
  • glue ( we used both a glue stick and white glue)
  • ribbon/yarn
  • goggly eyes
  • small pompom
  • brown or black marker

How To:

Cut your construction paper into 6 equal-sized strips. Mine are 2″ wide x 9″ tall.

reindeer face

Begin by choosing one strip of paper to turn into your reindeer’s face. Make the face first so that the pompom nose can be drying while you assemble the chain. Using your brown or black marker, draw 2 antlers. Then attach your googly eyes. My son really wanted his reindeer to be Rudolph, so he chose a red pompom (size 1.2 cm) for the nose. We used white glue to attach our nose because the glue stick wasn’t sticky enough and our nose kept falling off.

Now it is time to make your chain our of the remaining 5 strips of paper. Fold your first strip of paper into a circle and glue the ends together. Next, take your second strip and stick it through your circle. Glue the ends of the second strip together forming a circle. Repeat this process with the remaining strips of paper until all 5 pieces are connected in a chain. Once your pompom nose is dry, you can add the last of piece of paper with the reindeer face to the top of your chain.

To finish our craft, I tied a red ribbon through the top chain so we hang the paper chain reindeer craft up in our home!

paper chain reindeer craft
Paper Chain Reindeer Craft
Winter

Fingerprint Winter Tree

Jennifer
Fingerprint Winter Tree Craft
Fingerprint Winter Tree Craft

Enjoy a snowy winter scene without having to leave your warm home with this fingerprint winter tree craft! My 4 year old really like using his finger as the paint brush for this activity. We don’t get snow at our home in the winter so my kiddo has to be content with pretend snow until we can make a trip up to the mountains. I paired this craft with a snow-themed book, The Snowy Nap by Jan Brett. It was fun to read about snow and do a snow project together!

Supplies Needed:

I love low prep activities that I can quickly pull together without having to delay the fun or make a trip to the craft store! This project is quick and easy to get started with minimal supplies.

You Will Need:

  • construction paper (I used light blue)
  • black marker ( I used a Sharpie, but I think any black marker would work)
  • white washable paint
  • paper plate or paint pallet

How To:

First–draw an outline of a barren tree. I didn’t fill in my tree trunk, but feel free to color it in however you like. Maybe draw a hole and your child can pretend there’s an animal hibernating in there! 

Second–pour a small amount of white paint onto a paper plate or a paint pallet. I like to use Crayola Washable Paints. They are easy to wash off which is fantastic since we somehow seem to get paint everywhere.

Third–have your child dip their finger into the paint and then make “snowy” fingerprints on the tree. Be creative with your snow placement!

Fourth–make a snowy ground by dripping some white paint at the bottom of the tree and letting your child smear it all around with their fingertip.

Fifth–let your project draw before showing it off!

More Winter Crafts:

Check out more winter crafts that my son and I made: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/preschool-winter-crafts/

There is a cute and sparkly snowflake, a fuzzy candy cane, a handprint peppermint craft, and more fun things to make with your preschooler.