Get inspired by some summer time fun with this easy sandcastle craft for kids!
This beach themed art activity uses a squeegee to make a simple background for our free sandcastle template.
It’s super easy to make and a fun alternative to using a paintbrush.
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Sandcastle Craft
I made this sandcastle craft with my daughter last week so I know that this is a kid friendly activity and we had a really good time making our sandcastles together.
She’s nine years old but using the squeegee to spread paint is so easy that I think this is a craft that toddlers and preschoolers could join in with too, they’ll obviously need adult supervision though and you will need to cut out the sandcastle shape for them.
Craft Supplies
- Sandcastle template printed onto yellow paper
- Scissors
- Glue
- White cardstock
- Paints
- Shower squeegee
Free Printable Sandcastle Template
You can of course draw and cut out your own sandcastle picture but if you’d like to use the picture that we did for this craft then make sure you grab our free printable sandcastle template which has two different designs in the PDF file.
How To Make Your Sandcastle Craft
Start by grabbing your cardstock and paints. You could use normal printer paper for this craft but due to the large amount of paint needed I would highly recommend using cardstock so that it doesn’t become over saturated.
You need to make sure that your cardstock is at least as big as the paper that you have printed your sandcastle template onto. I’ve used some cardstock which was a bit bigger than this so that we would have more room to do our painting.
Next pour a little of your paint onto one edge of your cardstock. I’ve gone with different shades of yellow and blue to represent the sand and sea or sky but my daughter wanted to go with all different rainbow shades so that was what she did.
Now take your squeegee. If you don’t have one of these then you could use something like an old store loyalty card which will be able to drag the paint across the paper. Obviously don’t use any current bank or credit cards though!
Drag the squeegee through the paint so that your cardstock gets covered in paint. You can just do this once in one direction or move it back and forwards as I did to give the paint a bit more cover on the card stock.
Tip – If you are using more than one color then I recommend that you clean your squeegee between each swipe so that the colors don’t blend too much. Of course if you are only using one shade and want a bit of a mix then that’s not an issue but if you want to keep the colors vaguely separate as I have in my picture then I’d really recommend this or else your yellow sand and blue sea will all end up a shade of mermaid green!
While the paint is drying print out your sandcastle template onto yellow paper and cut around the outline using scissors.
Once your paint is dry you can stick your sandcastle onto it’s painted background using glue.
More Beach Crafts for Kids
For me summer means beach crafts and we have a load of easy and fun ideas that we’ve tried out over the years.
This shell suncatcher uses another of our free templates and is also a good activity for kids if you have a lot of scrap materials sitting in your craft supplies, as well as tissue paper we used leftover packaging from a parcel to decorate our version.
Painting with bubble wrap is a really fun activity and this fish craft which uses another of our free templates would be perfect for a beach theme.
I love paper plates because they’re a really basic and cheap material that lots of us have access to.
This paper plate beach craft is a good one for kids because you can adapt it easily depending on what they are interested in, so if they want to do a plain beach with some waves in the background then that’s great, but if they want to draw or use stickers to add seashells, dolphins or starfish then that’s fine too.
Sandcastle Craft for Kids
Equipment
- Glue
- Scissors
- Squeegee
Materials
- Sandcastle template printed onto yellow paper
- White cardstock
- Kids paints yellow and blue
Instructions
- Pour some yellow and blue paint onto one side of your white cardstock.
- Use your squeegee to drag the paint from one side of the card to the other, coloring it in.
- Print out the free sandcastle template onto yellow paper.
- While the paint is drying cut out the template using scissors and then once the paint is dry you can glue it onto your painted scene.
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