Earth Day Paper Plate Craft
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Earth Day is one of the best holidays to celebrate with kids! Filled with learning opportunities, bridging all sorts of interests, and embracing all cultures, Earth Day Crafts – like this Earth Day Paper Plate Craft – are inclusive & a great way to facilitate more conversations about the day’s significance.
Earth Day is a great opportunity to discuss recycling, reusing, and repurposing items. Every Earth Day, we ask parents to send in any clean recyclables they may have around their home. The kids use these for building structures, crafting, and sensory play.
After Easter, many families have paper plates sticking around from big get-togethers, so we always get a great supply of sturdy paper plates to craft with! These paper plates can also be turned into mobiles with the simple addition of a hole and a bit of string.
Materials to Make Paper Plate Earths
- Paper plates
- Blue & green paint
- Paint brushes
- Sand or glitter – either blue or green
- Globe, optional – for guidance
We had some leftover sand from making sand bottle art last year, so that was a natural inclusion to add some texture – I’m a Montessori-trained teacher, so adding texture to the Earth components of a globe is almost a compulsion for me!
Of course, if you have any little astronauts in your group (like I do) you can invite children to make an entire assortment of paper plate planets! The Earth is a nice, neutral starting point.
Start off by painting the plate blue to represent the oceans of the world. We tried both ways – painting the land and painting the oceans first – and painting the oceans first was by far the easiest method.
Let the paper plates dry completely before the next step.
This is where that globe comes in. My daughter refused to draw an outline in pencil first, but I would encourage kids to use the globe to sketch out the land forms first and then add glue completely within those lines.
Sprinkle the green sand liberally over the glue and then tap off the excess onto a spare paper plate.
When the glue dries, you’ll have an awesome, textured “Earth” Paper Plate Craft!
Want more Earth Day ideas?
Check out our coffee filter Earth Day Craft for kids or grab our free Counting on Planet Puzzles.
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