Paper Plate Snake Mobile

We finally finished our paper plate snake mobiles this afternoon! We started them last weekend when we were doing some snake based crafts for Chinese New Year. I found the idea here. As they take a couple of days to make (you have to paint both sides of the plate) they just got left behind but finally I found 10 minutes to grab the kids attention just before dinner today!

You need:

Paper Plate
Paint
Stickers
Pen
Wool

How to make:

Paint both sides of the paper plate. Draw on a spiral. Decorate the plate with stickers. Draw a face in the centre of the spiral. Cut along the lines of the spiral. Make a hole on the head of the snake and thread some wool, securing with a knot. Hang your snake mobile.

 

 

Paper Snake

Following on from yesterdays Chinese New Year crafts, today we made paper snakes.

Take 2 pieces of coloured paper or card and cut out strips approximately 2.5/3cm thick. Tape the strips together to make 2 long strips of each colour.

Lay the pieces out in an L shape and tape the end together.

Accordion fold the paper until you have 4 or 5 inches of unfolded paper left.

Trim one colour off and tape it so the accordion won’t unravel.

On another piece of card/paper cut out a heart shape. Using glue or tape, stick this to the back of the long strip to make your snake’s head.

Stick eyes and a tongue on to your snake’s head. We used googly eyes and a tongue cut out of card, and then drew a mouth on with black pen.

I also stuck 2 lolly sticks  on to the finished snakes so the kids could use them as puppets, and Jasmine drew eyelashes on hers because it is a girl snake!

Chinese New Year Crafts

Gung Xi Fa Cai to everyone 🙂

Today is Chinese New Year and 2013 is the year of the Snake.

This afternoons craft session was all inspired by this celebration.

We started off making Tangram pictures. A Tangram is a Chinese geometric puzzle consisting of a square cut into seven pieces that can be arranged to make various other shapes. I printed out the colour Tangram and several picture silhouettes for us to have a go at from Activity Village. Jasmine and Thomas had a good go at these and, with help, managed to complete the pictures. We made a swan, a rocket, a rabbit, a dog and a boat.Then they both made up their own picture using the shapes. Well actually Jasmine made her own picture, Thomas told me what he wanted to make and then mostly let me do it! Jasmine’s (on the right) is a giraffe and Thomas’ is a spaceship

After the Tangram pictures we made very simple snake sock puppets. I got 3 old socks, cut out a tongue for each and stuck it on with glue stick. We then used googly eyes to complete the puppets. These have been very well played with this afternoon!Finally we made Chinese Paper Lanterns. I love making these and do them every year with the kids.

Take a piece of coloured card (I use A4 size) and mark out lines, approximately 2cm apart going across the width of the card. Fold the card in half, then unfold and score the marked lines carefully, leaving 3cm uncut top and bottom. Decorate, then add a handle to hang up your Chinese Lantern.