Making 3D art is always fun, and makes a change from the standard 2D art that young children so often get exposed too…it can add a different challenge and experience to creativity, and can be made as simple or as complex as they feel. Without realising, you have all the necessary equipment to do this (you may just need to finish up a few eggs beforehand!!!) So start saving some of your recycling in a little bag or box for those times when creating something 3D is on the cards!!!
This is a particularly simple art activity using an egg box, which pretty much every household will have ready to use at some point, so before putting it out with the rest of the recycling pop it in your box for occasions like this!!!
what you need…
- egg box (we used a big one that held 12 eggs but a small 6 egg box is still just as brilliant)
- masking tape
- green paint
- yellow paint
- paintbrush
- sponge
- pipe cleaners
- beads (optional)
- goggly eyes
what to do…
- with your masking tape, tape over the edges of the box lid in various places to hold it in place
- find your green paint and a paintbrush, and continue to paint over the egg box, covering as much as possible
- once you are satisfied your caterpillar is sufficiently covered in paint!!! add some goggly eyes to one end of the box (my son got rather over excited by this thought so we had a multi eyed caterpillar!!! the perception of a two year old can’t be beaten!!!)
- find your pipe cleaners and, if you have, thread on some beads to make the antennae
- with the scissors poke a couple of wholes down into the box to thread the antennae through (some adult help is advised here)
- push the pipe cleaners through the holes made
- to then make more of a textured look on top of the green paint, we then used a sponge and dabbed over the caterpillar with yellow paint…
- a very happy end result!!!
- (once all the paint is dry you could take a felt tip and draw a lovely smile on your caterpillar)
then into a little dream adventure…
- the best place to start to accompany this brilliant caterpillar that has just been made is to read the fabulous ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle, an absolute favourite, not only does it illustrate and tell the lifecycle of a caterpillar so beautifully, it introduces the language used at the various stages of the life cycle and it also covers mathematical aspects of development
- make a butterfly by taking a piece of paper, folding it in half, painting on one side then folding the other half over only to pull apart and see the most wonderful symmetrical butterfly appear
- you could also go one step further and make/find all the food and create a story sack of your very own…I adore story sacks as it brings the story alive
- go out into the garden, can you see any caterpillars munching on leaves!!! they can be all sorts of colours, shapes and sizes, its so special to spot a caterpillar
- buy a butterfly garden and watch the caterpillars eat their own food, grow to 10 times their original size, hang upside down n and shed their skins to form a chrysalis, to finally seeing them emerge as beautiful butterflies and releasing them into the garden
