This ROCKING PAPER PLATE SNAIL CRAFT is so fun! We love how bright and colourful it is with its pom pom spiral shell and googly eyes on stalks. Aren’t they just the cutest!
You’ll love how easy these paper plate snails are to make and how they rock forwards and backwards when you give them a little tap.
Getting the rocking snails to stay up right and balance is really easy with our simple tricks of the trade! Scroll on down to see how we did it.
If you’re looking for more snail craft ideas take a peek at out 3D Stacking Snails (they come with a free printable template) and our Shake Painted Rock Snails (the painting process is so much fun).
If your kids want to learn more about real snails why not try some Snail Racing or visit Kiddy House for some super slimy snail facts!
How To Make Paper Plate Snails
Rocking Snail Craft Supplies:
- Large Paper Plate
- Small Paper Plate
- Paint
- Mini Pom Poms
- Pipe Cleaner
- Coloured Wiggle Eyes
- Marker Pen
- Coin
- Glue
- Sticky Tape
- Scissors
Rocking Paper Plate Snail Craft Tutorial
1 – The large paper plate will make your rocking snail’s body. Paint it in a colour of your choice.
2 – The small paper plate will make the snail’s shell. Draw a spiral of glue onto it and stick on your mini pom poms. (Depending on what glue you use and how fast you work you might want to do this in stages so the glue doesn’t dry before you’ve added your pom poms.)
3 – Keep adding mini pom poms until you’ve completed the whole spiral.
4 – Fold your large painted paper plate in half. Towards one end cut two little notches out of the crease to leave two small holes.
5 – Cut your pipe cleaner in half. From the underneath of your large paper plate, poke each end of a pipe cleaner through the holes you made in step 4.
6 – Glue some coloured wiggle eyes onto the ends of the pipe cleaner to make the snail’s eyes on top of their tentacles.
7 – Glue the snail’s shell onto its body/foot.
Top Tips To Make Your Paper Plate Snail Rock Smoothly:
8 – When you try to rock the paper plate snail you’ll find that it will topple backwards because the shell end is heavier. We found that a neat and quick trick to remedy this was to tape a small coin inside at the head end!
9 – Depending on how thick your paper plate is you might find that it won’t stay folded when you try to rock it. Don’t worry! Remember the pipe cleaner half you cut off in step 5? Tape it to either side of the folded paper plate on the inside.
You can print the snail craft instructions below.
More Fun Summer Crafts To Try:
Rocking Paper Plate Snail Craft
Make super fun Rocking Paper Plate Snails!
Materials
- Large Paper Plate
- Small Paper Plate
- Paint
- Mini Pom Poms
- Pipe Cleaner
- Wiggle Eyes
- Marker Pen
- Coin
- Glue
- Sticky Tape
- Scissors
Instructions
- The large paper plate will make your rocking snail’s body. Paint it in a colour of your choice.
- The smaller paper plate will make the snail’s shell. Draw a spiral of glue onto it and stick on your mini pom poms. (Depending on what glue you use and how fast you work you might want to do this in stages so the glue doesn’t dry before you’ve added your pom poms.)
- Keep adding pom poms until you’ve completed the whole spiral.
- Fold your large painted paper plate in half. Towards one end cut two little notches out of the crease to leave two small holes.
- Cut your pipe cleaner in half. From the underneath of your large paper plate, poke each end of a pipe cleaner through the holes you just made.
- Glue some wiggle eyes onto the ends of the pipe cleaner to make the snail’s eyes on top of their tentacles.
- Glue the snail’s shell onto its body/foot.
- When you try to rock the paper plate snail you’ll find that it will topple backwards because the shell end is heavier. We found a neat and quick trick to remedy this was to tape a small coin inside at the head end!
- Depending on how thick your paper plate is you might find that it won’t stay folded when you try to rock it. Don’t worry! Remember the half of pipe cleaner you cut off in step 5? Tape it to either side of the folded paper plate on the inside.