Earth Day Puffy Paint Craft For Kids (With FREE Template)

Earth Day Puffy Paint Craft For Kids (with free template)

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If you want a great activity to celebrate Earth Day with your kids, this Earth Day Puffy Paint Craft for Kids is super easy and a lot of fun.

April 22nd every year is Earth Day. On this day over 190 countries stop and celebrate this amazing planet we live on. The focus of Earth Day is to save the planet and even young kids can get in on the action.

A great way to celebrate Earth Day with kids is to do a craft or activity that allows you to talk about the Earth and why we need to protect it.

The thing I love about this super fun Earth Day Puffy Paint Craft For Kids is that it combines a simple and fun craft activity with a fantastic sensory experience your kids will go crazy for. This craft really is an awesome idea for messy art… and it reinforces concepts like conservation, stewardship, and being a good citizen of the world!

Earth Day Paper Plate Craft

This is a great paper plate craft combined with a super fun (and a little messy) sensory painting activity. You can make this activity as guided (or not) as you want.

Another cool thing about this craft is that your kids can make variations based on the different aspects of the Earth. So, a plate for North and South America, a plate for Europe and Africa, and a plate for Asia. This would be especially interesting for older kids as you can talk about geography as well as have fun with the painting.

What you will need to make the puffy paint:

1 cup Elmer’s glue
1 to 2 cups shaving cream (not gel), depending on how fluffy you want the paint
Food coloring (for color), blue and green
Essential oils (for fragrance), optional
Glitter (for sparkle), optional
Construction paper, cardstock or paper plate (any color)
Map outline, if desired (or just draw it free-hand)

How to make the earth day puffy paint craft

1. In a large bowl, whisk together glue and shaving cream until combined.

2. If desired, add food coloring, essential oil, or glitter and stir to distribute. If you want blue and green colors, you will need to add blue and green food coloring respectively.

To make the different colors, scoop out a cup full of shaving cream puffy paint into two separate cups. Add the blue and green coloring (one per cup) and stir until the food coloring is fully missed with the base paint.

3. Trace the map on a paper plate or encourage the children to free-hand the map. If you choose to download the map template, you may not want to do more than a rough cut of it… because the paint will likely not be precise. The craft pictured was drawn free-hand.

You can download a FREE printable Earth Map Template here.

4. Allow child to paint with paint brushes, sponges, or cotton swabs. Sprinkle the paint with additional glitter and allow to dry. You might want to start with the green land painting, and then add the blue oceans. But really, that is very much up to you and your kiddos.

5. Optional: Have additional paper and scissors available for children to add land-forms or to label the map. Or, encourage children to decorate their creations with pom poms, gems, sequins, etc.