Paper Plate Easter Crafts

Paper plate tomb craftHE IS RISEN Laced Paper Plate Easter crafts - This Easter crafts for young children was posted by Michelle on the crafts for kids message board. I hope she won't mind me passing it on:


What you will need: Paper plate, scissors, markers, crayons, or stickers, hole punch, yarn, tape, (Optional) construction paper and paper fastener

What to do:

1. Cut a paper plate in half.
2. Cut a half circle out of the bottom of one of the plate halves.
3. Use markers or crayons or stickers to decorate the plate halves with bright flowers.
4. Hold the two halves of the plates together and punch holes 1" apart along the curved sides.
5. Tape one end of a piece of yarn to make a needle and knot the other end. Holding the halves together, lace around the curved sides. Attach the yarn end to the back with tape.
6. Write "He is risen" on the inside behind the cutout half circle.
7. Hang up your project with a loop of yarn.

Other ideas: Cut a construction paper circle for the stone and glue it to one side of the entrance.

Draw an angel inside the tomb and the two Marys on the outside.

I made up a sample of this craft and the other teachers love it too (Yeah!!). We will do the lettering ahead of time, and also glue the two paper plates together before punching the holes to make it easier for the kids when lacing. The children will lace the plates and decorate them with markers and stickers (we found small birds, butterfly and flower stickers) on Easter crafts Sunday. One of our teachers also came up with the idea of making the stone out of construction paper and attaching it to the plate with a split-pin so that the children can "roll away the stone" to see the empty tomb. (Haven't tried that part yet).

We think this is a great Easter crafts for our children and we are very grateful to Michelle! We also love the "He is risen snack" using glazed doughnuts and doughnut holes listed under VBS snack recipes from one of your links. Thanks, Elizabeth, for passing this craft on to us.

Plant an Easter Garden Easter crafts - This idea comes from Elizabeth off of our bulletin board.

What you will need: Dome-shaped plastic containers, (found at your local bakery) potting soil, empty film canister, small rock, grass seed, artificial flowers, and small wooden cross.

What to do:

Help the children spoon potting soil into the bottom half of the plastic container (You could do this ahead of time if you are worried about the mess!).

For Jesus' empty tomb have the children half-bury an empty film canister (a toilet roll cut to fit could also be used) and put more dirt on top of it to make it look like it is in the side of a hill. Then they can place a small round rock beside the opening.

The children can then sprinkle grass seed over the dirt, and stick small artificial flowers in the earth to decorate their garden.

To finish have each child place a small wooden cross in their garden. The crosses can be made ahead of time by wiring twigs together.

Before sealing the container have the children sprinkle water all over the seeds.

"We had very positive feed back from parents on this activity. I don't know where the original idea came from, but we have enjoyed doing this activity. It is also nice to keep a sample one in the classroom." Elizabeth .

Cindi VanWingerden who teaches 4-year olds did this project with her class. She says, "I let each child decorate a small white pot (about $1 each) with stickers, then put in the dirt, seeds, film canister (cut in half to allow more room for the flowers) and the rock. I think it really will help them remember the story of Jesus. The parents loved in. I gave the parents a note explaining the symbolism (along with explaining what we are currently studying)."

I used the Easter garden Easter crafts with my 3-5 year olds on Easter crafts. It went over pretty well - we did a short crayon and paper craft before we made the garden so they would understand what the tomb looked like, and read a book with some great illustrations. I think if anyone is going to use this with preschoolers they need to already have discussed the tomb and what it looks like before they actually do the craft. We had a few visitors that week, none of whom had ever heard the Easter story, and they were a bit confused by the concept of the tomb itself. The craft itself turned out to be pretty messy. They were forbidden to touch the dirt, but of course that lasted about five minutes! My aid entertained the crew with decorating the pots, choosing the day's attendance stickers and preparing for snack while one at a time they "helped' me fill the pot with dirt. That helped a lot, and kept little fingers out of the dirt and glitter pens. We used paint shirts, a necessity because we were all in our Easter finest, and dirty white dresses would not have impressed my parents! I think it would have been better overall if I had prepared one well in advance to be already covered in grass so they would have better realized what we were doing. That was my "oops" of course, and next year I'll have one ready. I'll also use larger pots - we tried those little 4" flower pots and they just weren't large enough for everything. We ended up leaving out the flowers so we'd have room for the cross and rock. Also, a toilet paper tube cut in half was a little large for the pot. After we finished I realized that watering, even gently, will eventually soften and break down the toilet paper tube, so it won't stay a true tomb garden for long if you go that route. I did cheat on the crosses and instead of making them out of twigs and sticks I bought some glow in the dark plastic crosses from a local bookstore. The whole craft section only took 20 minutes ( I was set up ahead of time) to complete with 6 students. Bethany Davis