Paper Plate Earth Day Craft
Toddlers and preschoolers will love this simple paper plate Earth craft. They’ll be painting, gluing, scrunching and crunching, doing all the things little crafters love best!
When is Earth Day?
Earth Day falls on April 22nd every year, and we always make a point of making some Earth Day crafts in the days leading up to it.
Today’s Earth Day craft is a great activity to do with toddlers, preschoolers and elementary school kids while have your Earth Day discussions.
Using blue paint for the oceans and green tissue paper for the land, your kids can create an image of planet Earth on their paper plate.
You may have heard that we’re on a mission to make paper plate crafts for every letter of the alphabet this year.
We’re not working in any particular order – we just pull out the paper plates when the mood strikes, and we tackle a few of the ideas we have on our A-to-Z list.
With Earth Day approaching, we have the perfect reason to make our letter E craft.
Let’s get started!
Supplies for Paper Plate Earth Day Craft
- paper plate
- blue paint
- paint brush
- green tissue paper cut into 3″ squares
- glue
- pencil
Talk to your kids about Earth Day
Before you begin crafting, take a few moments to talk with your children about the earth, about the oceans and land masses – you might look at an atlas, a globe or some pictures on the internet to show your child what our planet looks like from space.
Talk too, about how important it is that we take care of our planet. You can discuss ways to help keep our earth clean and healthy – recycling, composting, conserving energy and water, using rain water from a rain barrel to water the gardens, and cleaning with vinegar and baking soda so we’re using fewer chemicals.
Continue chatting about preserving our planet and it’s resources while you’re crafting. You might think up a list of things that you’ll do together this month or this year to make a positive difference to our Earth’s health.
Making your paper plate earth:
Start by painting your paper plate blue.
We went with only one shade of blue today, but you could put several shades of blue, and even some white, in a pallet, and let your child mix them all while she paints her plate.
Kids love colour mixing, and the shadows and highlights created by the various colours would give the oceans some depth and dimension.
We gave out paper plates a quick blast with the hair dryer, and the paint was dry in less than a minute.
Looking at a picture of the earth on the internet, we roughly sketched North and South America with a pencil.
To finish, the kids crumpled up the squares of tissue paper, and glued them inside of the outlined continents.
Be sure to observe Earth Day on April 22nd!
More Earth Day Craft ideas:
No-Mess, Smoosh-Painted Earth Day Craft
Tissue Paper Earth Day Craft
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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.
