Summertime is about watermelon, lemonade, and picnics! With all those tasty treats come lots of ants, too! Create your own picnic scene and practice counting skills with this craft activity for preschoolers. This is a part of our Summertime Activity Plans which is full of ideas for crafts and activity for preschoolers. Go check it out if you love this craft activity for preschoolers!
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How to do the craft:
A fun story to read before completing this project is One Hundred Hungry Ants. Little Miss loves this one!
First, paint the background.
Talk about going on a picnic and where you would want to put your picnic blanket. Some cool green grass makes a great place for a picnic!
Toddlers can use a brush or brayer to paint the entire paper green for their grassy picnic spot.
Using different tools can add different textures to the background, so let your little one experiment if they want with using paint brushes verse brayers.
Add the picnic Blanket.
While the “green grass” dries, let your preschooler pick out the perfect picnic blanket.
Origami paper is a great source for this, since it comes in fun shapes and colors, but any paper can be cut to a square size for the picnic blanket.
Glue the blanket to the grass when the paint is dry enough to handle.
Add the ants.
How many body parts do ants have? Talk about the body, the thorax, and the abdomen as your preschoolers use paint daubers to paint three black dots in a row for each ant.
Let them add as many ants as the picnic can handle!
Ants can go one the grass or on the blanket. Let them get creative!
Add food.
You can’t have a delicious picnic without food! But oh no, the ants are stealing some of our food!
Using food stickers or scraps of paper cut into different shapes, add food to the picnic blanket and to some of the ants backs as they carry it off the blanket.
Add Finishing Touches!
If your preschooler wants to add googly eyes, legs, or any other creative touches to their ant picnic, now is the time to do so! When they are all finished, display your delicious picnic for all to see!
Did you enjoy this craft activity for preschoolers? Check out our other arts and crafts for 3-4 Year Old’s!
