Quick and Easy Kids Crafts: Planet Earth

I miss having preschoolers.  When my kids were in preschool, I always new what holidays were coming up because I would be flooded in themed crafts.  Earth Day almost snuck up on me.  We don’t typically do many Earth Day kids crafts, though we did make this easy sun catcher last year.  If you like to do easy kids crafts, I have two that you can do this weekend just in time for earth day.

The beauty of “Earth” crafts is that they don’t have to be put away after the holiday.  We can celebrate and learn about our planet any day of the year.

…because we always live here.

For this craft, you will need to find and print out a Earth coloring page that you like.  There are literally thousands of them online.

Materials for the Earth

Earth Coloring Sheet

• Wax paper
• old green crayon
• old blue crayon
• old baking sheet
• pencil sharpener or craft knife
• oven
• scissors
• Green Sharpie
• Blue Sharpie

Instructions:

Using a manual pencil sharpener, sharpen a green crayon and collect the shavings.  You can also use a knife to chop the crayon into little pieces. Set aside the green shavings.

Do the same with a blue crayon.  For a more realistic, space view Earth, add a few shavings of white, gray, and different shades of blue.  Set aside.

Tear off a piece of wax paper the size of your Earth coloring sheet.

Place on the old cookie sheet

Place the sheet under the wax paper.  Trace the Earth’s circumference in blue.  Trace the continent shapes in green.

Remove the coloring page.

Position the green shavings over the land mass shapes.

Place the blues, whites, and grays over the oceans areas.

Place another wax paper sheet on top.

Preheat oven to 200 or 225.

Place baking sheet in oven approximately five minutes.  Check periodically. Once the wax has melted remove from oven.

The wax spreads as it melts.  I used the bottom of a sharpie to push the colors somewhat back to the “land mass” areas.  Don’t worry too much about the spreading wax, though!  The view from space is not exact. 😉

A few minutes, check the wax for coolness.  Once cool enough to handle, simply cut the “Earth” sphere out with a pair of scissors.  It’s a great way to explain how clouds and weather conditions can change how the Earth looks from space.

After seeing how this one came out, Pork Chop requested that we make one for all the planets!  I told him that we would study each planet and then make one.  Doesn’t it look cool?

Linked to the Link and Learn Link up!

Linked up to Totschool Gathering Place.