My three year old daughter’s favorite animal is a panda. And has been for a couple years. So, for our P alphabet craft we obviously did a P is for pig craft. Whoops. I didn’t even think about it until my daughter was telling Grandma about her recent crafts. She asked why we didn’t do pandas and my daughter told her we would when we got to that letter. But, while I probably don’t deserve mom of the week award, she still did enjoy her pig craft. And who says we can’t stay on P for a while and still do a panda craft.
After just writing a whole post on popsicle stick crafts, I thought it would be fun to make our pig out of them. And pipe cleaners, pom poms and pink paint. We have some hard letters coming up, but P was definitely not one of them.
How to Make a P is for Pig Craft Out of P Craft Supplies
Materials:
- Jumbo popsicle sticks
- Pink paint (or start with pink popsicle sticks)
- White glue
- Sharpie
- Pom poms
- Pipe cleaners
Making the Letter P:
The first thing we did was make the letter P out of jumbo popsicle sticks. To do this, I cut three of my popsicle sticks in half. I had never thought about doing this until writing that roundup. It was actually really easy and they cut a lot cleaner than I expected. I laid them out into the shape of a P to make sure it was going to work before handing the sticks to my daughter to paint.
I had prepped the table with newspaper for my daughter to paint on. A lot of the time I use a plastic tablecloth instead. She loves painting, so she she enjoyed making them all pink. She did a really good job getting the paint pretty close to the edges. If you don’t want to paint with your child, you can always skip this step and just use pink popsicle sticks.
Then, I placed them outside for just a few minutes to dry them. Once they were dry, I laid them out in an upside P. I armed my daughter with white glue and let her start gluing. They didn’t stay together well, so I cut up more popsicle sticks for supports. My daughter glued them on as well. Before moving it outside to dry, I moved it to our plastic tablecloth, so it wouldn’t get stuck to the newspaper.
After another while in the sun, we had a bright pink P made from popsicle sticks.
Making the P Into a Pig:
Now, it was time to make the pig. I gave my daughter a Sharpie (always a terrifying experience) to make lines on a big pom pom for a pig nose. If something does go wrong, How Stuff Works lists ways to get permanent marker out of a variety of materials. Then, I tried to show my daughter how to twirl a piece of pink pipe cleaner around a pencil to make the tail. She wasn’t very interested, so I made it and the ears. I made the ears by wrapping other pieces of the pipe cleaner around some pom poms.
Lastly, my daughter glued it all together. I showed her where to put the nose, ears, tail and eyes. Glue is right up there with paint in my daughter’s favorite activities. So, she enjoyed putting all the pieces on.
Conclusion of Our P is For Pig Craft
While it definitely isn’t a panda, I think our P is for pig craft turned out really cute. Since my preschooler got to both glue and paint, she enjoyed making it. Getting the popsicles sticks to glue together was a bit of a pain, but it all turned out OK. I recently did a glue stick test and I wonder if my new extra strength glue stick would have worked better. Let me know if you try it.
Make sure to check out our other alphabet crafts. And scroll to the bottom to subscribe to my weekly newsletter to get future letters (maybe even a second P) sent straight to your email inbox.
