Firefly Paper Plate Craft Inspired by Eric Carle

We mad fun making adorable paper plate fireflies to go along with one of our favorite books about lights, nocturnal animals, and perseverance called The Very Lonely Firefly (affiliate link).

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The Very Lonely Firefly (affiliate link)

The book is magical because when children turn to the last page their faces won’t be the only things that light up (find book and turn to last page to see what I mean) and the best part is the firefly is no longer lonely anymore–yay! Who knew bugs could be so sweet!

We made our Paper Plate Craft to resemble the fireflies from the book with red wings and green faces but you could always adjust the colors to look more like a real firefly. I found some cool pictures to show the kids on Firefly.org. I wish we had fireflies where we live because then we could check them out in real life. The only time I have ever seen them was when I was visiting Kansas which was a long time ago, but I will never forget how cool it was to see them flying around like little stars.

Take a look through all our Eric Carle inspired activities including the ever so popular Very Hungry Caterpillar activities here: Eric Carle Activities

Firefly Paper Plate Craft

Pin me please! 🙂

Supplies:
Paper plate
Craft paint (red, brown, yellow)
Craft paper (green, orange, yellow, blue, red)
Paint brush
Glue
Scissors
Stapler/Staples

Directions:
1.  Paint the outside of the paper plate red for the wings. Paint the inside of the paper plate yellow on the bottom for the light and brown on the top for the body. You may want to flip the plate over and paint the outside red too. (We didn’t because then we would have had to wait for our craft to dry twice, but if you have more patience you may want to because when the craft is finished you can see the white part of the wings from the side).

2.  Cut out a large green circle for the head, two yellow medium sized circles, two small blue circles, one red mouth, and two orange antennas. Assemble the parts of the face and glue them to the green head.

3.  Cut two arches, one along the top and the second one along the bottom of the paper plate between the wings and body. Make sure to leave the two sides of the paper plate connected to the wings. I cut the wings for my kids.

4.  Grab the top and the bottom of the wings, pinch them together, and then staple them. Next play around the with wings until you get them to look like circles and staple again to secure it. I overlapped a part of each wing on top of itself–totally not hard to do, just kinda hard to explain (if only you could all come over and I would just show ya! :). Then your firefly is done and ready to display or play with. My kids have enjoyed holding them as we read together.

Pin me please! 🙂

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