Watermelon Paper Plates
Along with providing a healthy dose of vitamins A and C, watermelon is the perfect fruit to help your young learner develop his fine motor skills, number sense, and color and shape recognition. Your child will create and count as he makes his own fruit-inspired piece of art. This fun summer project will take you from snack time to art time in minutes!
What You Need:
- Watermelon with seeds
- Paper plate
- Marker or crayon
- Red and green paint
What You Do:
- Before you start the art project, talk about the fruit. Slice it up and take a look at it. What color is it on the outside? What about the inside? What different kinds of seeds are there?
- When you’ve finished slicing, it’s time to start snacking! While he's snacking on his watermelon, ask him to guess the number of seeds in his slice. Help him count out the actual number of seeds as he eats. How close was his estimate? Did the slice have more or less than he guessed? Set the seeds aside for the project.
- Once he's done snacking, it’s time to start creating! Take a paper plate and draw a straight line across the middle.
- Help him cut the paper plate in half by cutting on the line. Familiarity with scissors is an important component of kindergarten readiness. Teach your child how to hold the scissors correctly with his thumb in the little hole. Remind him to keep his “thumbs up” when holding the scissors and the item to be cut. This is also a great opportunity to talk about shapes. What shape is the paper plate? What shape is it after he cuts it?
- Take one of the paper plate halves and have him paint the ridged outer rim green. This will be the watermelon rind.
- Have him to paint the inner portion of the plate red. This will be fruit.
- Now it’s time to use those watermelon seeds. Let him squeeze dots of glue onto the red portion of the plate. Have him place the seeds on the dots of glue on at a time. Picking up the little seeds is wonderful fine motor skill practice. Count the seeds together as he picks them up. When all of the seeds are glued onto the plate, you'll have a brightly colored slice of watermelon art!
- Set your watermelon art outside to dry.
When you're all done with the project, think about what other fruit art you can make. Combining nutrition and art is a great way to get your child eating healthy and having fun at the same time!