Your child will love putting her creative energy into making this festive wreath using scrunched up pieces of purple, green and gold tissue paper glued to a paper plate form. You can whip this festive craft up in a jiffy and even young children can cut, scrunch and glue the tissue paper to make this colorful Mardi Gras decoration. This is a simple activity that offers lots of practice working independently and developing those fine motor skills.
What You Need:
- One sheet each of gold, purple and green tissue paper
- School glue
- Safety scissors
- Paper plate
- Ribbon
What You Do:
- Cut the inner circle out of a paper plate, leaving an outer ring. An adult can help with this first step.
- Have your child cut the tissue paper into approximately 2" x 3" pieces.
- Let her scrunch up each piece of tissue and put them into three different piles, sorted by color.
- Pour some glue into a paper bowl.
- Ask your child to dip the tissue paper into the glue and stick it onto the plate. Make sure you only use a small amount of glue. Have your child hold each piece of tissue paper down for a couple of seconds until the glue starts to set.
- Make sure the tissue paper covers the entire front plate of the wreath so that the plate is no longer visible. She can use the different colors in a random arrangement and make any sort of pattern she likes.
- Set the plate on a piece of wax paper to dry overnight.
- If you like, you and your child can decorate the other side of the plate with more tissue.
- Staple on a piece of gold, green or purple ribbon on the back of your wreath at the top so that you can hang your decoration and display with pride. Or, if you happen to have a Mardi Gras necklace laying around, attach it to your wreath instead of the ribbon, for an extra festive touch! Just cut out a strip of paper, slip the necklace over the tab, and glue the tab to the back rim of the plate. Regardless of what you use to hang your wreath, make sure you lay the plate down and allow the glue to dry before hanging.
If you don’t have tissue paper and a paper plate on hand, try using other materials you may have around the house. An alternative is to stretch a wire hanger into a circle and tie purple, gold and green ribbons or strips of fabric all the way around. This method also offers the same learning principles.
Did you know that the colors of Mardi Gras have specific meanings? Purple respresents justice, while green represents faith, and gold represents power.
Add your own comment