Paper Plate Ladybug Craft for Toddlers

Toddlers and preschoolers can use buttons and corks to make this cute and easy paper plate ladybug craft! It’s a simple spring craft that lets kids explore painting, gluing and stamping.

We LOVE paper plate crafts!  You can make so many things out of a simple paper plate.  One of the cutest that we’ve made lately are these paper plate ladybugs! It’s our Letter L craft in our A-Z paper plates crafts series and a great little nature craft for toddlers and preschoolers.

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home….

With spring temperatures on the rise this week, the ladybugs are coming out of the woodwork and kind of taking over our house at the moment. I don’t know where they hide all winter, but they’re everywhere!

The hooligans love hunting for them and following them around, shrieking and squealing when they take flight.  They’re downright fascinated with the little guys, so I figured a ladybug craft was in order this week.

Let’s talk ladybugs…

To start, we looked at some images of ladybugs on the internet.

We talked about their colours and markings, and we counted their legs and spots.

I gave each of the hooligans a red and black pen, and looking at a picture on the screen of the laptop, they practiced drawing some ladybugs of their own.

Then we got down to some crafting!

Supplies:

• center cut out of a paper plate
• red and black paint
• glue
• corks
• buttons
• googly eyes
• pipe cleaners
• hole punch

To make our ladybugs:

While I was setting things up, I had the girls sifting through our button collection, looking for black buttons. This is such a fun sensory and fine motor activity in itself.

I poured several shades of red paint into a tray, and we talked about how each shade was different, and what the names of the shades were: Raspberry Red, Cherry Red, Christmas Red and Cranberry.

The girls had fun painting their plates and blending the reds together.  You can use the paper of your choice for the body of your ladybug.  You could even use a full paper plate.  I had recently saved the centres from the paper plate Easter wreaths  we made recently, so they were perfect for our craft today.

A little black paint at one side of the circle became the ladybug’s head.

Googly eyes were added and then the girls got busy putting the spots on their ladybugs.

One ladybug, they stamped with corks and black paint, and the other, they dotted with buttons.

When everything was dry, I punched 3 holes on each side of each plate, and the kids threaded pipe cleaner “legs”  through the holes.

Aren’t they sweet?

More bug crafts for toddlers:

• paper towel butterflies
• tissue paper – clothespin butterflies
• painting spiders and cobwebs
• easy bug headbands

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Jackie Currie

Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.