Paper Plate Bugs

I just love using paper plates as a base for crafting. They are so cheap ? and versatile! My son (26m) has recently started to take a great interest in bugs; always crouching down outside to watch a little ant go about its business. So here are some paper plate bugs that we made together to help him learn more about these little creatures.??

Bee
I used a yellow plate and stuck tape to it in vertical stripes.

Then I gave F the plate and some black paint (we used two types ? regular black paint and also black glitter paint). He pretty much covered the plate in black paint.?

Once the paint had dried I carefully removed the tape. The stripes weren’t perfect, but that didn’t matter at all.?I glued on a googly eye and cut out some wings from a black organza jewelry bag.?

Ladybug

Although I am from the UK where we say ?ladybird?, I am a complete convert to saying ladybug! We made these from red paper plates, but you could always use white plates and paint them red if you need to.

I made this activity all about copying form, so I made my ladybug first. Then I gave F all the pieces to make his own, with glue dots added to his red plate in the relevant places.

First he added all the spots, then last added the ?head?.

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We then did some number practice as we counted all the spots.

I had made this pretty easy for F by placing the glue dots in the correct position ? next time I?ll get him to apply his own glue!

 

Butterfly and Snail

During a recent painting session we used white paper plates as paint trays. I kept them and turned them into bugs.

For the butterfly I cut one of the painted plates in half, cut each half into wing shapes, and glued them to a body shape cut from construction paper.

For the snail I kept the plate whole, and glued on a piece of card for the body. Then I drew features onto the body and shell.

 

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