Paper Plate Handprint Character

Take simple paper plates, your child's handprints, and household items to make a sun, a duck, or a sunflower.

Supplies

• Large paper plates (for the sun or duck), small paper plates (for a sunflower)
• Construction paper for decorations
• Watercolor or tempera paints, crayons, or markers
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Stapler (for duck only)
• Other decorative items as desired
• Sunflower seeds and a cardboard tube (optional for sunflower)
• Glue or paste

Directions

1. Assemble all of your supplies. The list above is just a guide. Use your own imagination and creativity, and make it appropriate for your child's age.
2. For the sun, take a large paper plate and either paint it yellow or cover the front in yellow paper. Trace your child's hands on yellow paper and cut them out. Glue them around the outside of the plate for the sun's "rays.” Paint or glue a happy face on the sun!
3. For the sunflower, take a small paper plate, and either glue sunflower seeds to the center of it, or just paint or color the center dark brown or black. Then, trace your child's hands out of yellow paper and cut them out. Glue the hand prints around the outside of the plate for petals. For a stem, paint a cardboard tube green or cover it in green paper and attach the flower to it.
4. For a duck, fold a large paper plate in half and paint or color it yellow. Then, trace two of your child's handprints on yellow paper and cut them out. Next, cut a 3- to 4-inch circle out of yellow paper for the duck's head. Make a beak out of orange paper by cutting out an elongated oval with one end cut off.
5. Glue the beak onto the center of the face and add eyes. Then, glue or staple the face onto one end of the paper plate, near the fold line, with the fold facing up.
6. Glue or staple the handprints to the other end of the plate. Make feet out of orange paper and staple or glue them to the bottom of the plate.