Paper Plate Zebra Craft

Looking for a letter z craft or an activity for a zoo animal unit? Our paper plate zebra is easy to make, super cute and loads of fun to create.

Over the years we’ve shared a lot of paper plate crafts for kids and this paper plate zebra was actually the result of having a bit of torn paper left over from making our paper plate bee.

It was very much a happy accident to have (I hate chucking away any craft materials!) and I love the way that using this technique makes such great stripes for this paper plate craft.

As a mom I think that torn paper crafts are great for kids, as well as the benefits below they also have that feeling of doing something a little bit ‘naughty’ by being encouraged to tear something up and anything that encourages your kids to embrace creativity has to be a good thing.

Why Use Torn Paper?

Of course you could use strips of black paper to make this easy zebra craft zebra and that would be absolutely fine too, in fact it’s a great way to practice scissor skills.

So why go for torn paper? Well firstly as I mentioned before I had some left over from another craft and with two kids at home who can go through craft materials at the blink of an eye you so better believe that I try and get use out of every bit of scrap that I can.

However there is another reason, tearing paper is a great way to support fine motor skills – you can read more about it in this post by The OT Toolbox.

So whether you’re tearing or cutting paper you can be happy in the knowledge that you’re helping to support your child, as well as just having fun and just doing a nice craft of course!

Craft Supplies

• Paper Plate
• White paper or cardstock
• Black paper or construction paper
• Glue
• Scissors
• Black marker pen
• White marker pen

Paper Plate Zebra Craft

Start by tearing strips of black construction paper or normal colored paper. You could try making thinner and wider or go for all the same size.

Place your paper strips in a circular pattern around your paper plate and then glue them down. Either a glue stick or school glue / PVA / elmer’s glue is fine for this.

If the black paper you’ve used for your zebras stripes goes over the edges of your plate simply cut off any long ends when you have finished.

To make the eyes cut two large circles from white printer paper or construction paper and then use a black sharpie marker or pen to draw a pupil in the middle before gluing these onto your paper plate.

To make the snout cut an oval out of your black paper and then draw the nostrils and mouth on using a white marker (I love chalk pens for this). Glue this on below your zebra’s eyes.

To finish your zebra paper plate craft cut the ear shapes out of white cardstock and cut the inner ear shape out of your black paper before gluing these into place. If you prefer you could color in the inside of the ears using a marker or crayons. For the final touch glue the ears onto your zebra’s face.

Paper Plate Animal Crafts

Want to make more paper plate animals? No problem, we’ve got loads of ideas for you! Check out our round up of zoo animal crafts or take a look at the ideas below.

We love narwhals and these paper plate narwhal and jellyfish crafts are really easy to make.

Practice those scissor skills with this sweet paper plate rabbit craft.

Don’t fancy getting the paints out? Find out how we used shredded paper instead to make this paper plate pig.

Paper Plate Zebra

Make a paper plate zebra craft using torn paper.

No ratings yet

Print Pin Rate

Keyword: paper plate crafts, zoo animal

Prep Time: 5 minutes minutes

Activity Time: 15 minutes minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes minutes

Author: Kate Williams

Equipment

• Glue
• Scissors
• Black pen
• White pen

Materials

• 1 Paper plate
• Black paper
• White paper or card

Instructions

• Tear your black paper into strips.
  
• Glue these around the paper plate from the centre going outwards to make your zebras stripes.
• From white paper cut out two large circles to make your zebras eyes and draw a black dot in the centre of these for the pupil.
• From black paper cut out a large oval shape and using a white pen draw on the zebras mouth and nostrils. I've used black paper and a white pen for this but if you don't have these using a black pen on white paper would work just as well.
  
• Stick these onto your paper plate.
• Cut ear shapes out from white card. I've cut out smaller ear shapes from black paper and stuck these on for the inside of the ears but you could also just draw these on if you preferred.
  
• Glue these onto your paper plate to finish your zebra craft.
  

Notes

When you're sticking paper or card onto a rounded surface like a paper plate double sided sellotape can be a lot more secure than normal glue.I'm not a huge fan of it as it's often too fiddly for kids to use but for things like the zebras ears it can sometimes help (and I'd always rather help my kids with something fiddly than have them upset later if something won't stick!)

Tried this?Mention @craftsonsea - we'd love to see and maybe share it!