Texture-y Turtles {Spring Crafts with the Kiddos}

Good Afternoon, Everyone!

I hope this finds you all doing well 

and enjoying the Spring weather that seems to have FINALLY sprung!

This week there has been A LOT OF ACTIVITY at the ole' YMCA!

Why?

Well, the area school's are on Spring Break.

So basically we run a mini Summer Camp (we don't call it that, of course)

 to give parents another option for childcare.

We call it:

Spring Break School's Out!

As usual, it falls to me to come up with activities for the kids.

This is perfectly fine with me.

I enjoy planning activities and finding new and exciting things for the kids to do.

However, in general I do NOT enjoy actually carrying out the activities I plan.

But that task also fell upon me,

so I did my best to suck it up and get through the week.

And actually, it hasn't been terrible thus far

(then again, this is only Wednesday...).
We've only had one major paint explosion thus far.

Yesterday, we actually made a really fun craft:

Texture-y Turtles.

This craft is VERY simple, but very cute too!

And I didn't have to threaten the kids very much to do it correctly either

(which, honestly, is a minor miracle...

usually, I have to tell them that they are going to keep re-doing

the project until it meets my expectations...

yes, I'm THAT kind of "art teacher").

What You Will Need:

regular size paper plates

green paper

crayons / markers / colored pencils

scissors

glue

Instructions:

Give each child a paper plate and a turtle body parts template.

(I had free handed the turtle head, feet, and tail 

onto the paper for each child,

but you can find a turtle template here 

and simply copy it onto the green paper for each child).

Have the children cut out the body parts.

Instruct each child to fold their paper plate in half

and glue the head and tail inside the fold.

Next have them glue on the feet.

Finally, have them put facial features on their turtles 

and then decorate their paper plate turtle shells.

I chose to have my kiddos focus on different textures and shapes.

For example, some of them drew stripes on their turtles,

others cut squares from scraps of paper and glued them on.

Personally, I put my turtle on the rug and colored it with a crayon

so that the imprint of the texture of the rug showed through.

Like I said, SIMPLE and CUTE! :)

 What do you think?

Think maybe your kids would like making these turtles?

Let me know how they turn out for you!

You know I'm always ready to hear your stories!

Thanks for stopping by!