Paper Plate Garden: a Fun Letter “G” Craft
This Paper Plate Garden Craft is cute and easy to make. It’s a great activity to accompany a letter “G” theme in preschool or just a great preschool craft for spring.
This paper plate garden craft is part of our A-Z Paper Plate craft series, and a fun and easy flower craft for preschoolers. We used a variety of interesting materials which were fun for the kids to explore and added a nice dimension and a great pop of colour to our garden scene.
With spring just around the corner, put this fun and easy craft on your must-make list for the kids in the coming weeks.
Paper Plate Garden Craft
Supplies:
- paper plate
- artificial flowers or flower stickers
- craft sticks
- paint
- bugs and butterfly sequins or stickers
- small gems and jewels
- green Easter grass
- craft feathers
- brown yarn
- glue
How to Make Your Paper Plate Garden
We began by raiding the craft cupboards in search of any odds and ends that we could make a flowery garden scene with.
Then we painted our paper plates to establish a backdrop for our gardens.
The older children chose to paint their paper plates into two sections: blue for the sky and brown for the dirt.
One of the preschoolers chose to mix and blend the brown and blue paint until her plate was completely covered, and the other preschooler chose different colours altogether for her backdrop – red, purple, green and royal blue.
Even our reluctant crafter loved this one!
The hooligans love painting, and what was really interesting is this:
Our newest hooligan hasn’t completely embraced the crafting scene, She prefers to play constructively, and that is A-ok. I always encourage her to join us when we’re crafting, but most times she chooses not to.
Today when she saw the others painting, she decided to make a garden too. Guess who stayed at the craft table the longest. Yep! She didn’t even want to stop for snack time, saying “I’m not ready to be done yet.”, “Just a little bit more”, “I want to put on some more flowers on.”
I love to see a child’s love for crafting develop when they’re here in my daycare. Sometimes it takes a while, and I never force it, but over time, every hooligan I’ve ever known has come to love craft time. I always hope that when our time here together in my daycare over, that they leave with a life-long love of art and craft and creativity.
A tip to make glueing easy for young children:
When our paint had dried, I placed all of our garden goodies on the table along with a pot of glue and a couple of paint brushes.
The older children like to squeeze the glue straight out of the bottle, but the younger kids prefer to use a glue pot and paintbrush. It’s less frustrating, and they have more control over where they’re applying the glue. Although squeezing a glue-bottle is great for strengthening hand muscles, applying glue with a paintbrush also has its benefits as it helps to develop fine-motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination.
Look at these beautiful garden scenes.
Some painted their craft sticks green to form flower stems, and they glued flowers all over their plates.
Kids come up with the best ideas…
Mid-way through our crafting session, one of the 3 year olds went to the cupboard, and got our jar of craft feathers. When I asked her what she was going to use them for, she said “for the things that come out of the flower stems.”
I thought for a moment. Aha, the leaves of the flowers. Of course! I hadn’t even thought about putting leaves on the stems, and even if I had, I certainly wouldn’t have thought to use craft feathers.
I love the way kids think! Often, their ideas are so much better than mine!
The hooligans glued butterflies, dragonflies and ladybugs to their plates, and they added gems to the centres of their flowers.
Then, as we were finishing, it crossed my mind to give the child some earth worms. I grabbed a ball of brown yarn, and cut some short pieces, and the hooligans added several “worms” to their gardens as well.
What a fun and lovely morning of crafting! And such beautiful paper plate gardens to tie in with a Letter “G” unit.
More flower crafts and activities for kids:
Paper Plate Flowers
Artificial Flowers in the Outdoor Play Space
Garden Soup Sensory Play
Paper Flowers for Homemade Greeting Cards
Get the 3-5 Playful Preschool e-Book!
25+preschool activities by 25 bloggers, 10 printables, 50 links to activities not featured in the book all for $8.99!
Download your copy today:
Follow the Hooligans on Facebook
Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
