Preschoolers love crafts. They love them even more when the craft becomes something to play with afterwards.
This is one reason when it comes to kids crafts we especially love cardboard tube crafts. Not only are they fun and cheap, but you can create so many fun characters to play with using those tubes.
This toilet paper tube octopus is a fun preschooler craft for summer or to pair with a unit on sea animals.
Cardboard Tube Octopus Craft
Materials Needed:
- Empty Toilet Paper Roll (or cardboard tube cut to the same size)
- Scissors
- Markers/Crayons
- Glue/Clear Tape
To help guide your preschooler, draw 8 vertical lines going about 2/3 of the way up the cardboard tube. Have your child use scissors to cut on the lines.
Use markers or crayons to color the legs and body of the octopus. We found that marker showed up better than crayon.
You could also use paint, but then you will need to wait for it to dry before you can finish the craft.
To keep the mess to a minimum have your child color on a scrap piece of paper.
Have your child draw a face on the octopus. We added circles as suction cups to the bottom of all 8 legs, too.
The next step is purely optional. I cut a circle out, slightly larger than the circumference of the toilet paper roll. I cut a few slits in the circle of paper and then slipped it inside the octopus’ head area, securing it with tape. This made a top of the octopus for my daughter to add curly ribbon hair. (She wanted a girl octopus, and she insisted it needed hair.)
She was happy with her cardboard tube octopus. I think the ribbon hair looks much better than my original colored paper hair!
As a bonus, when she finished her sea animal craft she had a new little friend to play with.
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Claudia says
Too cute! We so need to try this in my house – with the amount of toilet paper we seem to go through we have tons of materials to get started with 🙂
admin says
That’s the great thing about toilet paper tube crafts – you never run out of supplies!
Rach says
Fun!
Tiffany says
This is such a cute idea, and who doesn’t have toilet paper tubes every few days. I’ll have to save my next few and give this a try.
Stopping by from The Mom Loop Friday follow. I’m your newest follower!
admin says
Thanks for stopping by! I’m headed to your site now!
JDaniel4's Mom says
I love its pink curls. So cute.
Jeanie Cullip says
fun! we will have to make the spider for Halloween decoration this year..
a latte of blessings & giggles,
Jeanie
admin says
Yeah, I was thinking it would be a great Halloween decoration… But she really wanted to use that colorful sand right then. LOL.
Robin @ pink dryer lint says
Clever! Great idea — thanks for sharing!
I appreciated you dropping by Pink Dryer Lint the other day. 🙂 Your comment made me smile.
Carly says
Super cute!
Eva @ The Multitasking Mummy says
A Very Cute Idea. I have a whole plastic bag of toilet roll tubes so here’s something I can do with them! Thanks for linking up 🙂
Lanaya | Raising Reagan says
What a fun project and really simple to do.
Thank you for linking to Raising Imperfection.
Please come back Friday to see if you were featured. 🙂
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Pinkoddy says
Fantastic! I was going to use pipe cleaners but cutting legs is a fab idea – I’m going to make spiders – I shall pin this and link back to you, hope that is ok.
OneMommy says
Can’t wait to see yours! 🙂
Debbie says
This is so cute! Pinned it! Thanks for sharing at Mom’s Library!
OneMommy says
Thank so much for pinning it!
Sara says
Perfect craft for tp tubes, with great results! Thanks so much for sharing on craft schooling Sunday!
Debs says
How sweet. Thanks for linking to Tuesday Tots. I’m featuring this post this week on Learn with Play at Home 😀