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?.
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.
This post contains affiliate links.