Laundry, dishes, grocery shopping… Moms are always busy! Wondering how to squeeze in a bit of craft time this week and still get all those chores done? This Paper Plate Monster Craft is easy enough for the kids to work on by themselves while you get dinner ready or fold that basket of laundry.
Materials Needed for Paper Plate Monsters:
- Paper Plates
- Construction Paper
- Crayons/Markers
- Glue Sticks
- Other fun additions: yarn, google eyes, pom-poms, pipe cleaners, craft foam (Tweak this list to fit your needs.)
If you want to create monsters with big, round mouths, like ours, simply cut the centers out of the paper plates before giving them to the kids.
For very young children you may want to have construction paper ears, horns, noses, etc. cut out ahead of time that they can then glue on wherever they’d like. Preschool-aged children and older can get creative and cut out their own pieces. This can be great scissor practice for preschoolers!
Some kids will jump right into this craft, knowing exactly what they’d like to add to their paper plate monster.
If your child is struggling, you can brainstorm ideas together.
- “Do you think your monster needs horns?”
- “You can cut triangles out to glue on for teeth.”
- “How many eyes will he have?”
Sometimes kids just need a bit of help at the beginning before their creativity really kicks into gear on a craft.
These fun monsters make great Halloween decorations. You could also easily glue craft sticks to the plates to turn them into masks for the kids to use in pretend play.
We used our paper plate monsters to inspire a writing activity.
We worked on writing strong paragraphs, starting with a topic sentence, adding at least 3 details and a closing sentence. “This is my monster. It has 4 eyes. It has sharp teeth. It has a big mouth. I like my monster.”
For older kids you could have them write a short story about their paper plate monster.
So, when the kids ask to do a craft this week, grab the paper plates and let the kids get creative with these paper plate monsters while you work on cooking dinner or getting those dishes done.
Other paper plate crafts you may like:
Katie (Growing Up KaterTot) says
I absolutely love paper plate crafts! They’re super inexpensive and fun for kids. These monsters came out looking fab! Great idea! #busydoinglife
OneMommy says
Paper plate crafts are one of our faves, too! 🙂
helen gandy says
These are great and such a good idea……simple to do too! Popping over from #busydoinglife
helen gandy recently posted..My Sunday Photo – 11/10/15
OneMommy says
We had so much fun with this craft. Thanks so much for popping over!
Claire says
What a fun craft idea, they would look fab hung up together like a big family of scary faces! I love ideas like this that are simple enough for the smalls but still look great once they are finnished! Thankyou so much for sharing with me at #busydoinglife it’s great to hav eyou joining in!
Claire recently posted..Glass painting on jars, perfect for autumn nights!
OneMommy says
We hung ours all on one door like a little monster family. 🙂