Paper Plate Food Crafts

Last week at Wide Bay Kids Playgroup the children became mini chefs with activities based around imaginary cooking. They role played in our home corner kitchen, washed the dishes in a soapy sensory tub and created paper plate foods for a very special teddy bears’ picnic.

We have an adorable boy in our group who has food allergies so using pretend foods was a wonderful way to remain inclusive with our play……..that’s just one reason why I love paper plate food crafts, after making a few examples I found it really hard to stop!

There are so many different kinds of paper plate foods to chose from I settled on my favourites – pepperoni pizza, watermelon, cake, and salad tacos. For older children you can get them to make the food themselves including the cutting, painting, and gluing.

For younger children I suggest you prepare a lot of it for them – including painting, cutting or folding plates and preparing the collage shapes.  The kids can then enjoy the fun of gluing and creating to make their restaurant food ready.

What you need:

• PVA Glue
• Green paint for watermelon skin
• Light brown for pizza crust (I mixed yellow, pink and white paints)
• Pink paint for cake frosting
• Yellow paint for taco (for time I kept mine white)
• Sprinkles or glitter
• Paint brushes
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Black felt pen
• Lids to trace around for pepperoni and tomato pieces
• Large paper plates
• Small paper plates
• Coloured construction paper:
  • Green for lettuce
  • Red for tomato, pepperoni, and watermelon
  • Orange for carrots
  • Yellow for cheese

Now lets get cracking.  I’ll take you through the process I used for making each of the paper plate food crafts.

How to make a paper plate watermelon:

1. Using a large plate fold it to make a half and open it back up.
2. Rule over the fold line with a pencil.
3. Cut along the fold line to make two halves
4. Paint the ridged edge of the plate green for skin.
5. Cut lots of small triangles out of red construction paper.
6. Then let your child glue the triangles onto the paper plate covering all the white.
7. Using a black felt pen ask your child to draw black oblong shaped seeds on the red.
8. Set aside to dry in a ventilated area.

How to make a paper plate piece of cake:

1. Paint a large paper plate with pink paint covering the whole paint.
2. Set aside to dry.
3. Mark your plate using a ruler and pencil into quarters and cut
4. Cover the cake pieces in glue
5. Spoon sprinkles or glitter on top of the cake pieces to decorate.

How to make a paper plate pepperoni pizza:

1. Paint the ridged edge of a large paper plate with light brown paint.
2. Trace around a small 2oc piece sized shape on red construction paper (you need about 8-10 per pizza).
3. Cut out the red circles to make pepperoni pieces.
4. Cut out lots of rectangle shapes (approx 10 cm x 5 cm) from yellow construction paper (enough to cover plate).
5. Now ask your child to cover the white part of the pizza plate in glue.
6. Have child add the yellow rectangles paper pieces to the plate making sure all the white is covered.
7. Glue on a few red paper pepperoni pieces to complete the pizza.

How to make a paper plate taco:

1. Optional – Paint the under side of a small paper plate yellow and set aside to dry
2. Fold the paper plate in half to make the taco shell.
3. Cut out a lettuce leaf shape from green construction paper keeping a flat bottom (see image)
4. Cut out a large rectangle of yellow construction paper for cheese
5. Using a large circle shape (i.e. jar lid) trace 2 circles on red construction paper.
6. Cut out the circles for tomatoes
7. Cut out some long (1 cm wide) strips of orange construction paper.
8. Scrunch up orange strips in hand for grated carrot.
9. Get your child to make their taco salad by placing ingredients inside the taco shell.
10. The playgroup kids wanted to glue their salad in but you don’t have to.

And there you have it, enough paper plate foods for your child to open a restaurant, or have a picnic.  Not only is this craft activity perfect for developing imagination, social and fine motor skills there is also lots of opportunity to talk about colour and shape recognition.

You could extend this learning activity further with older children by talking about numbers and pointing out maths fractions, such as the pizza is a whole, the watermelon is a half and the cake is a quarter.

Our Wide Bay Kids Playgroup had such a great time with this activity we celebrated with a dolly tea party and a teddy bears’ picnic to end off the session.  I took the left overs home and all my kids had a fantastic time with it even my 8 year old.