Crafts with paper plates is probably pretty popular. Which parent or educator hasn’t whipped out those paper plates for some quickly art project when stuck without proper art supplies.

Using paper plates for a craft project is actually a way to get children out of the box of thinking that one only needs real paper to make a project.

Not everyone uses paper plates  when wanting to use throw away plates.

Some of you may use plastic or even Styrofoam.

So for clarification, these activities are for REAL paper plates.

Of course the children have to know that its only for this activity and not to be used indiscriminately.

Spiral cutouts. Have the children color both sides of the paper plates.  If the children you are giving this activity to are little girls who can color endlessly then they will have no problem covering the entire plate on both sides with crayon. You may want to give the children the option of using washable makers.

Give them the thicker ones as the thinner ones take too long to cover space. If you encourage them to cover both sides, their spiral cutouts will be more colorful. But of course whatever they do is fine.Once their plates are all colored, you can give them scissors and have them start cutting around and around the paper plate in a spiral.

Younger children may need you to draw the spiral with a pencil so that they can follow. Once they are done they can see these spiral cutouts for mobile or decorations.

Paper plate Collage is another idea to use paper plates for.

The plates can be used as a background for a collaging activity.

You can give the children circles to collage with to introduce them to that shape it may be interesting to see how they collage with circles onto their round plates.

Paper Plate Masks.

There are many holidays that children can make masks for. I would cut out holes of eyes before they decorate the masks and then have the children decorate the masks with various materials you have around the house.

Feathers, cotton balls, sequins, buttons are all good materials that can help the mask come to life. You can of course add markers to help them finish it off. When they are done you will need to staple elastic to the sides so the children can actually wear them.

Making masks is actually what I call a cafeteria style activity in my course “Learning through Crafts” The complete multi media guide to Educational Arts and crafts for kids.

Just make sure that after the children color, collage or paint on these plates that they don’t use them for eating on. the art materials may be toxic.