Use the sun as inspiration for children's masks.
Kids love wearing masks and a sunny face will brighten up any nursery or home craft activity for little children. Helping them create their own sun masks will add to their enjoyment, encourage their creativity and coordination. Search out your yellow and orange craft materials and add some sunshine to your young crafters' lives.
Basics
A basic round, sun mask shape is easy to cut from colored card stock. Alternatively, paper plates are the ideal shape for small children's sun masks. Help children prepare for their mask-making activities by cutting two eyeholes in their plate or card circle with craft scissors. Give them yellow and orange non-toxic craft paints and a paint brush and encourage them to paint the entire surface of their masks in bright, sunshine shades. Provide glitter glue sticks so they can give their suns extra sparkle. Show them how they can make masks of solid colors for simple mask, or use splotches of different colors to create patterned masks.
Features
Give the children paints or colored pens and show them how to paint facial features, such as a nose and mouth on their masks. Alternatively, help them create three-dimensional masks. Provide them with orange or yellow pompoms, which they can glue on for noses and red wool to stick on as mouths. Some styles of masks have holes cut out at the mouth, as well as the eyes. You will need to do this for small children.
Rays
There are many ways and materials for creating the rays of the sun on different masks. Give children a length of a yellow or orange feather boa and help them glue it around the edge of their masks. Show kids how to draw round their hands, outlining their fingers, on yellow and orange card stock, then help them cut out the shapes. Then they can glue the handprints round the edge of their masks, with the fingers out to create rays. Or simply help the kids snip slits round the edge of their masks with children's safety scissors, for a very simple sun mask.
Extras
Children require a way to hold their masks to their faces. For a simple mask, simply tape a Popsicle or craft stick to the back of the circle, with one end in the center of the circle and the other protruding vertically from the bottom of the mask. Kids can use it as a handle to hold the masks to their faces. Alternatively, thread a piece of elastic string from one side of the back of the mask to the other, knotting on each side of the plate to secure it. Kids can then stretch the elastic over the back of their heads. The mask will stay on their face as they play.
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