Easy Fast Fun Paper Plate Crafts

Paper Plate Crafts

Paper plate crafts use materials you have on hand and are super simple to make. Let’s make a fish, a bird in a nest and a slice of watermelon!

Fun Skill Practice

These paper plate crafts ideas are great for practice in cutting and gluing for the littles, but the bigger grands enjoy them as well.

Paper Plates

I used the more heavy duty paper plates which give them more stability.

I imagine that would help at mealtime too! Don’t you hate it when the flimsy plates fold over and drop all the food on the floor?? Ha!

Fish Paper Plate Crafts

The fish craft is so easy. Let the grands color the front of the plate however they want.

Draw a triangle on the back of the plate with the point of the triangle as close to the center of the plate as possible. Let the kids cut out the triangle on the lines. You will need this piece so don’t throw it away!

Take the triangle piece and staple it to the opposite side of the plate from where it was cut out. Staple the point to the edge of the plate to make the tail of the fish.

Color an eye on the fish and continue to color to make it just perfect. Wal-lah!!

Bird Paper Plate Crafts

The bird was the favorite of the day for the kids. One chose to make a red bird and the other a blue bird.

I drew an oval and a long rectangle on the construction paper. The kids cut these out. I have attached a pattern you can print off to make this easier if you wish.

Draw a line on the plate that divides the plate in half. The bottom half will be where the nest goes.

The construction paper pieces were glued on the top half of the plate, right above the line so the bird would sit on the nest. The circle is the head, the oval is the body and the rectangle is the tail of the bird (as shown in the picture).

Cut or tear a series of strips from the brown construction paper to be the sticks/straw in the nest. You can scrunch these up a bit to make them look more bent up if you want. I happened to have some packing paper strips I saved from a gift I’d received in my stash, so I used that for the nest material. I’d been looking for a way to use it up!!

Glue the brown paper strips on the bottom of the plate as a nest under the bird.

Finish by coloring the background behind the bird. It can be blue sky or tree leaves or a rainbow, whatever the grand imagines! So cute.

Watermelon Paper Plate Crafts

The piece of watermelon uses half of a paper plate. Cut the plate in half and let each grand have one half.

I suggest having a newspaper or old vinyl table cloth on the table for this one. The kids will color off the edge of the plate and get coloring on whatever is behind, so protect your table!

The grands are to color the fluted edge of the plate green to be the rind of the watermelon. Color the rest of the plate red or bright pink. Color black seeds on the red part. This is cute and fast to make. Of course, it would be fun to eat watermelon when you are done!

Paper Plate Crafts Galore

There are SO many things to do with paper plates so I keep them in my craft stash all the time. Pull them out anytime you need a craft filler. The kids come up with their own ideas too.

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