Preschoolers get so excited whenever it’s time to talk about something that moves. (Maybe because they move so much themselves?)

When I was young, I grew up in a very small town with a train track. Hearing the sound of the train was a pretty common occurrence.

When I was a teenager, my father even turned our entire backyard into a model railroad layout. Honestly, that was a bit too far, but I digress.

I still love trains. And I thought this fun toy train paper roll craft would make a simple and fun transportation activity to share with all of you!

Keep reading to see how to make one with your students.

And for more fun with transportation, take a look at our Revving Racecar Scissor Skills Printables!

What You’ll Need to Make the Easy Paper Roll Train Craft

To make this toilet paper roll train craft, you’ll need the following: (Affiliate links are used below. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

• Colored craft paper
• Pencil
• Scissors
• Craft glue
• Toothpicks
• Toilet paper roll
• Printer (with ink)
• Printer paper
• A copy of the Toy Train Paper Roll Craft Printable Template

Once you’ve printed the paper template, use a pencil to trace the individual pieces onto colored craft paper. Then cut each piece out.

If you’re working with very young children, you may want to do this step yourself before you begin the activity.

After you’ve cut out all the pieces, you’re ready to go!

How to Make a Train Paper Roll Craft for Kids

Glue the body of the train around the empty paper roll to form the train chassis.

Use the end of the scissors to poke holes through the paper roll.

You’ll need a total of four holes – one for each train wheel. (This step should be done by an adult.)

Now it’s time to make the train “wheels”.

Glue the small circles onto the larger circles to form the wheels.

Attach a toothpick to the end of one wheel using craft glue.

Insert a toothpick through the hole on one end of the paper roll and push it through to the hole on the other side.

Attach the second wheel to the open end of the toothpick.

Do the same on the other side to form the second set of wheels.

Now, make two fold lines in the train “top” piece.

Glue the four smaller rectangles on each end – two on each side. These are the train “windows”.

Finally, you’ll make the funnel.

Fold the smaller cylindrical piece into a tube and secure the end with craft glue. Fold the top funnel piece into a circle and glue the ends together.

Glue the two pieces together to form the funnel.

All that’s left now is to glue the cabin and the funnel onto the train!

Such a cute train craft to make with little ones!

Looking for more activities about things that go? Try these transportation theme activities for early learners!

The post Easy Paper Roll Train Craft for Kids appeared first on Look! We're Learning!.

I love to make crafts with my kids, especially when they’re very young.

What I don’t like is having to buy a whole lot of supplies (and expensive ones, at that!) for a project that I’ll only do once.

So, when I make a craft with my preschooler, I always prefer to do one that I can get done in 10 minutes or less.

After all, Pre-K kids have pretty short attention spans. 

If you’re looking for some simple crafting fun for young kids, try this list of super easy preschool crafts you can make in just 10 minutes!

This list is full of easy PreK crafts for each season.

Some work well for spring, others for summer or fall, some are perfect for winter – and some are great any time of the year!

Read on the see the full list. And for more simple preschool ideas, check out my list of 10 preschool learning activities you can do in 10 minutes!

25 Super Easy Preschool Crafts

1. Toilet Roll Butterfly Craft – Look! We’re Learning!

2. Torn Paper Fall Tree Craft – Hands On As We Grow

3. Easy Snowflake Craft – Mama Smiles

4. No-Sew Sock Snowman Craft – Easy Peasy and Fun

5. Easy Wax Boats – Housing a Forest

6. Train Tape Resist Craft – Look! We’re Learning!

7. Easy Craft Stick Snakes – Crafty Morning

8. Coffee Filter Apple Craft – Look! We’re Learning!

9. Easy Shapes Salt Truck Craft – Sugar Aunts

10. Pringles Can Binoculars – Happy Hooligans

11. Farm Paper Bag Puppets – Look! We’re Learning!

12. Easy Paper Plate Watermelon Craft – ABC Creative Learning

13. Simple Fork Print Sunflower Craft – Crafty Morning

14. Simple Farm Craft with Stickers – I Heart Crafty Things

15. Coffee Filter Sun Craft – Look! We’re Learning!

16. Shape School Bus Craft – Look! We’re Learning!

17. Simple Cardboard Tube Construction Set – Inner Child Fun

18. Simple Craft Stick Photo Frame – Living Montessori Now

19. Woven Craft Stick Butterflies – The Craft Train

20. Sea Shell Salt Dough Craft – Teach Mama

21. Farm Shoebox Diorama – Look! We’re Learning!

22. Simple Airplane Craft – Learning 4 Kids

23. Paper Plate Cars – Glued to My Crafts

24. Clothespin Snowman Craft – Easy Peasy and Fun

25. Easy Shape Car Craft – Look! We’re Learning!

Did you like this post? Try these other early learning ideas!

This post is part of the Crafts for Kids Unit Study roundup! Stop by to read other great kids’ crafts posts from my fellow educators!

The post 25 Super Easy Preschool Crafts You Can Make in 10 Minutes appeared first on Look! We're Learning!.

Between watching the chickens run around, petting the goats and baby lambs, and seeing the pigs root in the mud, there was so much for the kids to see!

Our youngest child still loves the petting zoo and she’s not alone!

Kids just love farm animals, which is why farms are such a popular topic for early childhood education units.

This year, our youngest child is working on reading more picture books and we started with the book Big Red Barn.

To help her with learning to recite stories, I made up some printable farm paper bag puppets so she could reenact parts of the story.

And I’m sharing them with all of you today!

Read on to see how you can get these cute puppet printables free!

And if you want to share more farm activities with the kids, try our farm animal flashcards or our easy farm shoebox diorama craft!

How to Assemble the Printable Farm Paper Bag Puppets

To make these farm paper bag puppets, you’ll need the following: (This post contains affiliate links. For details, see our Disclosure Policy.)

• Printer (with ink)
• Printer paper
• Brown paper lunch bags (One per puppet)
• Crayons
• Child-safe scissors
• Liquid glue
• A copy of our free Farm Paper Bag Puppet printables (Details below)
• Pick up a copy of Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown to make this a storytime activity!

First, you’ll need to print the paper bag puppet faces out.

Give the kids some crayons and let them color them in!

We did traditional farm animal colors, but let the kids use whatever colors they want! If they want to make a purple cow, so be it.

After you color in the puppet faces, use a pair of child-safe scissors to cut them out as one piece each.

Flip a paper bag upside down so that the bottom is at the top. Leave it folded.

Then spread liquid glue over the folded bottom. That’s where you’ll paste the puppet face.

Stick the puppet face on the bag bottom and hold it down to glue it securely.

Cut another piece of printer paper in half and color it to match the puppet face.

Then glue it onto the paper bag body directly under the puppet face. Be sure to flip the bottom up so that you can fit the paper onto the bag.

When you’re done, the puppet should look like this.

Keep reading to pick up the printable template for these farm animal puppets!

How to Use the Farm Paper Bag Puppets for Storytelling

Repeat the process with the other puppet printables to make a cow puppet, a chicken puppet, and a pig puppet.

Since we were reading Big Red Barn, we wanted to make one of each.

But you could also print three pig puppets to go along with The Three Little Pigs or print several cow puppets to go with Click, Clack, Moo.

There are plenty of great children’s books about farms to use these with!

To make your puppets “talk”, just have the kids put their hands inside the bags and place their fingers into the folded bag bottom (the same place where the face is).

They can move their fingers up and down to make each puppet speak!

Using lunch bags is the easiest way to make sure that the bags will fit your little ones’ hands.

But if you want to make adult puppets, you might want to get bags that are a little bit bigger.

“Oh, Mr. Pig, you’re so funny!”

These were so much fun for storytelling! And they’re great for pretend play too!

Scroll down to get your copy of our Printable Farm Paper Bag Puppets free!

Have even more farm fun with the kids!

 

 

To get your copy of these printable Farm Paper Bag Puppets, just click the image or the link below to download them to your computer!

>>> Farm Paper Bag Puppets <<<

This post is part of the 31 Days of ABC linkup!

The post Super Cute Printable Farm Paper Bag Puppets appeared first on Look! We're Learning!.

So we tried this easy textured sponge painting preschool craft with our kids and they absolutely loved it! It was a simple way to study color and painting while giving them a bit of sensory input at the same time.

Read on to see how to do this simple art project with your kids! And if you love this craft, try our list of super easy preschool crafts you can make in 10 minutes!

Textured Sponge Painting Preschool Craft

To do this craft, you’ll need the following:

• Large kitchen sponge
• Scissors
• Fingerpaint
• Painting paper
• Paint cups
• Newspaper
• Sketching pencil (optional)

To set up this craft, we cut a large kitchen sponge into four pieces and handed them out. (This step should be done by an adult.)

Then we added a bit more texture by having the kids crumple up their paper before beginning. We found some super old fingerpaint (I mean, from when Tigger was a toddler) and added a bit of water to thin it out and then it was time to get started!

When we asked Roo if he wanted me to sketch his design for him, he said “I want to make whatever I want to make.” Got it.

Tigger wanted to paint a picture of a tree, so I sketched it for her to give her a little guide since the sponge tips are so large.

Pooh wanted to paint a train and it ended up not going as well as he would have liked. But the experience of painting was so fun that he was all smiles anyway at the end. I think that’s what art should be like for kids!

Here’s everyone’s work. Mine is at top left, Tigger’s is at top right, Pooh’s train is bottom right, and Roo’s unique individualist expression is at bottom left.

To give the pictures a bit more flair, we sprinkled glitter and colored salt on them before they dried. A simple introduction to Impressionism, perhaps?

Have you tried this textured sponge painting preschool craft with your kids? Let me know how it went in the comments!

Like this post? Try these other ideas for preschoolers!

And get more ideas for preschool learning on my Learning for Little Ones Pinterest board!

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