Paper Plate and Tissue Paper Ladybug

Age Group: 2 years to 6 years
Estimated Time: Around 30 minutes
Messiness: High

Materials:

• 2 paper plates
• Red tissue paper cut into squares
• White craft glue
• Black paint
• Scissors 
• Pipe cleaners
• Cellotape

Method:

1. Cut the middle out of one of the paper plates to make a head.
2. Paint on the dots, stripe and eyes of the ladybug.
3. Once dry, apply a thin layer of craft glue over the entire surface of the ladybug (head and body).
4. Stick the red tissue paper squares onto the glue.
5. Use cellotape to stick the pipe cleaners to the under side of the head to create feelers.

Tissue Paper Fish

Age Group: 2 years to 6 years
Estimated Time: Under 15 minutes
Messiness: Medium

Materials:

• White craft glue
• Scissors
• Tissue paper cut into squares
• Googly eye
• Coloured cardboard paper

Method:

1. Cut out a simple fish shape from the coloured cardboard.
2. Spread white craft glue all over the cut-out in a thin layer - using a small spatula works perfectly.
3. Stick the pieces of tissue paper onto the glue. It's ok if the tissue paper goes over the edges as you can trim it off once it has dried.
4. Stick on the googly eye with the craft glue.

Bottle and Tissue Paper Buzzing Bee

Materials:

• Recycled water bottle
• Yellow tissue paper
• Yellow cardboard paper
• Black cardboard paper
• Scissors
• Black pipe cleaner
• Black kokie
• White craft glue
• Cellotape

Method:

1. Stuff the yellow tissue paper into the dry bottle and close the lid.
2. From the yellow card, cut out wings and a head.
3. Cut out 2 strips from the black card, making sure they fit around the bottle.
4. Poke 2 holes in the adjoining fold in the head and thread through the pipe cleaner. 
5. Twirl the pipe cleaner ends to make feelers.
6. Use the black kokie to draw a face onto the head.
7. Use the craft glue to stick on the head, stripes and wings.
8. Use cellotape to ensure they are all properly secured.

Toucan

Materials:

• Paper plate
• 2 A4 pieces of black cardboard paper
• Black poster paint
• Green poster paint
• Red poster paint
• Scissors
• White craft glue
• Googly eye
• Brown cardboard paper
• Red tissue paper
• Yellow tissue paper

Method:

1. Cut the paper plate in half.
2. Paint the front side of the one paper plate half black.
3. Paint the under side of the other paper plate half mostly green, with the tip being red.
4. Whilst drying, trace your hand onto the black card. Your fingers must be together, not spread apart.
5. Cut out.
6. Cut out the body from the other piece of black card. (See picture)
7. From the brown card, cut out 2 feet.
8. Tear up the red and yellow tissue paper and roll into balls.
9. Use the craft glue to stick the googly eye onto the body.
10. Once the plates have dried, use craft glue to stick them onto the body where they are meant to go. (See picture)
11. Use craft glue to stick most of the red tissue paper balls in a row above the feet.
12. Stick the yellow tissue paper balls around the eye and down the side of the beak. 
13. Stick a few red balls onto the edge of the yellow balls.

Clothes Peg Golden Sun

3 year old

 Materials:

• Paper plate
• Yellow poster paint
• 2 googly eyes
• 5 clothes pegs
• Purple tissue paper
• Red tissue paper
• Orange tissue paper
• Yellow tissue paper
• Blue tissue paper
• White craft glue
• Red kokie

Method:

1. Cut the paper plate in half.
2. Paint the one half yellow.
3. Paint the 5 clothes pegs yellow.
4. Cut out 1 strip of each of the colours of tissue paper.
5. Once the plate has dried, use craft glue to stick the strips to the straight part of the plate.
6. Use craft glue to stick on the googly eyes.
7. Use the red kokie to draw a mouth.
8. Once the pegs have dried, clip them onto the outside of the sun!

Autumn Tree Scene

Age Range: 6 years to 10 years old
Estimated Time: 30 to 45 minutes
Messiness: High

Materials:

• White cardboard paper
• Orange paper
• Yellow paper
• Red paper
• Cardboard tube
• Green poster paint
• Blue poster paint
• Brown poster paint
• Red tissue paper
• White craft glue
• Scissors

Method:

1. Paint the white card green.
2. Use the brown poster paint to paint rings around the cardboard tube.
3. Cut about 2cm slits from the bottom of the tube.
4. Bend them outwards and stick craft glue onto the bottom of each flap.
5. Stick them down onto the now green card.
6. Cut about 3cm slits from the top of the tube, less the 1cm apart from the other.
7. Cut out leaves from the coloured paper.
8. Use craft glue to stick the leaves onto the 3cm flaps.
9. Use blue paint to paint a river and pond onto the now green card.
10. Crumple bits of red tissue paper into balls and use the craft glue to stick them under the tree.

Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow

3 year old

Age Range: 2 years to 8 years old
Estimated Time: Under 20 minutes
Messiness: Medium

Materials:

• White cardboard paper
• Black cardboard paper
• Scissors
• Pritt glue
• Red tissue paper
• Orange tissue paper
• Yellow tissue paper
• Green tissue paper
• Blue tissue paper
• Purple tissue paper
• Gold glitter glue

Method:

1. Cut out a pot shape from the black card.
2. Use Pritt glue to stick it onto the white card.
3. Cut out squares from all the tissue paper colours.
4. Using Pritt glue, paste a the squares of each colour in strips going down so that it looks like a rainbow.
5. Use gold glitter glue to draw in gold circles to represent the "gold" in the pot.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Recycled Water Bottle

Age Range: 6 years to 10 years
Estimated Time: Over 1 Hour
Messiness: High

Materials:

• Plastic water bottle
• Various shades of green tissue paper
• Red tissue paper
• Pipe cleaner
• Craft knife
• White craft glue
• Bostik glue
• Yellow cardboard paper
• White cardboard paper
• Green paper
• Small green pom-pom
• Pritt glue
• Scissors
• Green poster paint
• Black poster paint
• Yellow poster paint

Method:

1. Cut out 2 yellow circles for eyes (about 2cm across) and 2 green circles (about 1.5cm across).
2. Use Pritt glue to stick the green circles onto the bigger yellow circles.
3. Spread craft glue on the underneath of the bottle and about 1cm around the edge of the bottom of the bottle.
4. Stick pieces of red tissue paper onto the glue.
5. Use craft glue to stick the eyes onto the bottom of the bottle.
6. Use craft glue to stick the pom-pom on as the nose.
7. Spread craft glue over the rest of the bottle.
8. Stick on strips of tissue paper in the different shades of green.
9. Let dry.
10. Use the craft knife to poke a hole on the top of the caterpillar just where the red tissue paper ends.
11. Fold the pipe cleaner in half and push the fold through the hole as feelers.
12. To make the leaf, cut out a leaf shape from the white card.
13. Paint the entire cut-out green.
14. On one side of the leaf, paint over with yellow to create lime green. 
15. On the other side of the leaf, use a tiny bit of black paint to create the darker effect.
16. Cut out a "bite mark" on the edge of the leaf.
17. Use Bostik glue to stick the Caterpillar onto the leaf!

Tissue Paper Dump Truck

Age Range: 2 years (with help) to 7 years old
Estimated Time: About 30 minutes
Messiness: Low

Materials:

• White cardboard paper
• Coloured paper in 3 different colours
• Black paper
• Various colours of tissue paper
• Scissors
• Pritt glue
• White craft glue

Method:

1. Cut out the truck from the various colours of paper.
2. Use Pritt glue to stick them together onto the white card.
3. Cut the tissue paper into squares and scrunch them up.
4. Spread craft glue on top of the truck where you want to stick the tissue paper.
5. Glue the small balls of tissue paper onto the craft glue.

Paper Plate Fish

Age Range: 2 years to 6 years
Estimated Time: Under 30 minutes
Messiness: Medium

Materials:

• Paper plate
• Scissors
• Poster paint
• Different coloured tissue paper
• White craft glue
• Cellotape
• Small piece of white cardboard paper
• Black kokie

Method:

1. Use the poster paints to paint the paper plate and leave to dry.
2. Once dry, cut out triangle from the plate to make a mouth.
3. Stick the triangle that you just cut out on to the back of the fish as a tail. Use cellotape for this.
4. Spread a thin layer of craft glue over the fish and paste on little bits of tissue paper.
5. Cut out a circle from the white card as an eye and stick it on with the craft glue.
6. Use the black kokie to draw a dot inside the eye.

Tissue Paper Chick

Brilliant Easter craft!

Age Group: 2 years (with help) to 5 years
Estimated Time: Around 30 minutes
Messiness: Low

Materials:

• Yellow cardboard paper
• White craft glue
• 2 googly eyes
• Orange tissue paper
• 2 orange pipe cleaners
• 2 feathers
• Cellotape

Method:

1. Cut out a small circle from the yellow card.
2. Roll up pieces of tissue paper in small balls.
3. Spread a layer of white craft glue onto the circle and paste down the tissue paper balls.
4. Use craft glue to stick on a triangular beak and googly eyes.
5. Once it has dried, turn it over and cellotape the feathers and legs to the circle.

Under the Sea Theme

Age Group: 3 years (with help) to 10 years

Estimated Time: 30 to 45 minutes

Messiness: High

Materials:

• A1 sheet of blue cardboard paper or 6 A4 pieces stuck together
• A few short strands of raffia
• Green pipe cleaners
• Soup mix
• White craft glue
• Cellotape
• Soup Mix Starfish (see below)
• Paper plate crab (see below)
• Jellyfish (see below)
• Shark (see below)
• Hand print rainbow fish (see below)
• Hand print octopus (see below)

Method:

1. We did the sea bed first by applying a thin layer of craft glue to the bottom of the page and sprinkling on soup mix.
2. We then stuck on our crab with craft glue.
3. The soup mix starfish was stuck on next, also with craft glue.
4. We then made our jellyfish, shark, rainbow fish and octopus.
5. Finally we cellotaped the raffia and green pipe cleaners onto the sea bed as seaweed.

Materials:

• Coloured piece of cardboard paper
• Soup mix / lentils
• Scissors
• White craft glue

Method:

1. Cut out a simple starfish shape from the coloured cardboard - as you can see, I'm no artist!!
2. Spread white craft glue down the middle of each tentacle.
3. Sprinkle the soup mix/lentils onto the glue.
4. Shake the excess soup mix/lentils off. 

Materials:

• Paper plate
• Red/orange poster paint
• Red/orange cardboard paper
• Stapler
• Scissors
• Black kokie

Method:

1. Paint the entire one side of the paper plate red or orange and set aside to dry.
2. Whilst drying, cut out 2 pincers and eyes.
3. Once the paper plate has dried, staple the paper plate in half.
4. Staple the pincers and eyes to the back of the paper plate.
5. Draw small black dots onto the eyes

Materials:

• White poster paint
• 6 equal length pieces of string
• White craft glue
• Scissors
• Coloured cardboard paper for the shark
• Googly eye

Method:

1. Firstly, we did the jellyfish.
2. We painted the jellyfish's head in white poster paint - it needed 2 layers to not be too transparent.
3. We then cut the string into 6 equal length pieces and daubed craft glue at the tops and bottoms, then stuck them down.
4. We then moved onto the shark.
5. Christopher insisted that the shark be red, so I cut out a simple shark outline out of red cardboard paper.
6. Christopher spread a thin layer of craft glue onto the back of the shark and stuck it down.
7. He then glued on the googly eye, also with craft glue.
8. I painted in teeth with the white poster paint.

Materials:

• Lots of different coloured poster paints
• 3 googly eyes
• White craft glue
• 3 small blue pom-poms
• A little hand!!

Method:

1. Firstly we did the fish. 
2. I painted each of Christopher's fingers and his thumb and palm different colours to create a rainbow fish. 
3. He then stuck on the googly eye with craft glue.
4. We used the blue pom-poms as bubbles and stuck them on with craft glue too.
5. We then moved onto the octopus.
6. I painted his hand purple to his insistence.
7. As a hand only has 5 fingers and an octopus 8 tentacles, I had to paint on 3 extras.
8. He then stuck on the googly eyes with craft glue.

Clothes Theme - Dinosaur Style!!

Dinosaurs are an absolute favourite for Christopher, the little 2.5 year old Slovakian boy I teach 3 times a week. To get him to do anything, I have to incorporate some sort of dinosaur into the mix!! (Please keep in mind that these designs were out of the head of a 2.5 year old!!)

Age Group: 2 years (with help) to 6 years
Estimated Time: Under 30 minutes
Messiness: High

Materials:

• Paper plate
• Poster paint
• Coloured cardboard paper
• White cardboard paper
• Big pom-pom
• 2 googly eyes
• Tissue paper cut into small squares
• Shredded tissue paper
• Scissors
• White craft glue
• Pritt glue

Method:

1. Paint the paper plate any colour of your choice.
2. Whilst the paper plate is drying, cut out the dinosaur's arms and legs. Christopher wanted very BIG feet with 3 pointy toes and very small arms with 3 pointy fingers - sort of like a T-Rex. As he is still too small to cut out fine details, I did the cutting for him.
3. I then cut out the teeth. He wanted 4, big, sharp teeth for his dinosaur.
4. We then moved onto the clothing part of the lesson. I drew a beanie sort of hat and cut it out.
5. Christopher chose orange tissue paper for the bottom part of the beanie. He glued these small squares (which I had pre-cut) onto the card with normal Pritt glue.
6. He then chose the colour of the "wool" (shredded tissue paper) he wanted to use on the hat. This we stuck down with white craft glue.
7. He then chose the biggest pom-pom I had to glue onto the top of the hat - also with craft glue.
8. Once the paper plate was dry, we stuck everything into place with craft glue.
9. Lastly, we stuck on the googly eyes (also craft glue)

Age Group: 3 years (with help) to 6 years
Estimated Time: Under 30 minutes
Messiness: High

Materials:

• 2 paper plates
• A variety of poster paints
• 4 A4 sheets of coloured cardboard paper
• White cardboard paper
• 3 big pom-poms
• 2 cupcake liners
• 2 large pieces of felt
• 1 pipe cleaner
• Scissors
• White craft glue
• Black kokie

Method:

1. The theme for this lesson was "shoes" but Christopher, of course, insisted on making a dinosaur - so I decided to compromise and we made the dinosaur with shoes!
2. We started by painting the 2 paper plates in different colours and put them aside to dry.
3. We then painted 2 A4 cardboard sheets one colour and the other 2 another colour, as we used 1 sheet for each arm and each leg.
4. Whilst those were drying, Christopher chose 2 different coloured pieces of felt and I cut out a very simple shoe pattern. As Christopher had decided that his dinosaur needed very BIG feet, I had to cut out very BIG shoes.
5. We then cut a pipe cleaner in half and bent each half into a heart shape to resemble laces.
6. We stuck the "laces" onto the "shoes" with white craft glue - you have to hold the pipe cleaners in place whilst the glue dries (about 2 minutes), otherwise they will not stick.
7. I then used the black kokie to draw large dots onto each cupcake liner to make big eyes.
8. I cut out triangular teeth from the white card.
9. Once all was dry, we stuck it all together using white craft glue.
10. It was quite tricky sticking the cupcake liners down without squashing them flat by mistake! But after a few attempts, we managed.
11. Christopher chose where to put the feet and arms, and thus, we ended up with feet on the one side and arms on the other!

Sensory Rainbow

Below are two variants of a "sensory rainbow". The second one is made out of very different textured materials for each colour and the other is a little simpler.

Age Group: 2 years to 6 years
Estimated Time: Under 15 minutes
Messiness: Medium

Materials:

• Crayons in rainbow colours
• Pom-poms
• Felt
• Ribbon
• Buttons
• White card (A4)

Method:

1. Draw the rainbow in the correct colour order.
2. Let the child choose what material he/she would like to stick onto each colour.
3. Make sure that the object they choose is the same as the colour of that stripe in the rainbow!

Age Group: 4 years to 8 years
Estimated Time: Under 15 minutes
Messiness: Medium

Materials:

• Pink felt
• Purple pom-poms
• Blue pipe cleaner
• Green feathers
• Sandpaper coloured in yellow
• Orange tissue paper rolled into balls
• Red kokie

Method: 

1. Stick all the items in the correct colour order.
2. This is a brilliant activity for tactile stimulation!