Inexpensive Homeschool Curriculum and Supplies

I have been able to get more mileage out of inexpensive paper plates for school curriculum projects, and home kid-crafting, than almost any other supply item. This unexpected crafting item is extremely versatile, and with a few additional odds-and-ends, can be turned into almost anything from pictures to puppets, for education or playtime.

Dancing Tambourines

Using 2 paper plates, staple all around the edges, and leave an opening for dried beans. Add a handful of beans, and then staple the opening closed, to use as a tambourine for dance or band. Adding streamers, paints or crayon-decorations are all optional.

Organizer Trays

Use paper plates to organize items gathered on nature walks, beach trips, and mountain hikes. To ensure pockets are emptied before clothes go into the laundry, play the sorting game with rocks, shells, seed pods and pine cones.

Framed Works-of-Art

Supply your child with markers or paints for picture painting, or crafting a collage from magazine cut-outs, stickers and/or photographs, within the inner circle of a paper plate. The ribbed outer circle will act as the picture frame which could be painted (and dried) or colored prior to creating the inner picture.

Using a hole-punch, make one or two holes at the top of the paper-plate picture frame, and tie-on a ribbon loop for hanging. This method will hold your child's photos, and collage artwork for display.

Scrapbooking Memories

Other framed variations include scrapbook-page pictures, for displaying family vacations, or barbecue-picnic photos. Kids can also turn the inner circle into a gold-fish aquarium or snow-globe holiday picture, using glitter sprinkles to represent water and/or snow.

A clear sheet of peel-and-stick vellum can be cut into circular shapes, and placed over an aquarium or snow-globe scene for a more authentic look. Curriculum themes can also be illustrated in this manner.

Color Wheel Clock

Make a color wheel to demonstrate primary and secondary colors on the inside paper-plate circle. In pencil make 6 equal pie slices, which your child will be coloring, using the 3 primary colors of red, blue, and yellow, with crayons or markers.

Coloring 3 slices yellow, 3 red (overlapping one yellow) and 3 blue (overlapping one red and one yellow) will give your child a color wheel. This will also show them how to create other colors.

Label the primary colors in capitol letters, and the secondary colors in lower case. The color wheel will be labeled going clockwise; YELLOW, orange, RED, purple, BLUE, and green. Label the surrounding white portion of the plate White (no color/ lack of color).

Then color a 2" circle in the center where all the slices connect, combining all the above colors, and labeling it Black (all colors mixed together). Black and white can be used to lighten or darken any other colors.

To turn the color wheel into a clock, add numbers beginning with 12 on top, and 6 on the bottom. Using scrap cardboard, cut out a long and short (arrow) hand, hole-punching the ends of both, and attaching to the color wheel with a brad tack. Allowing you to teach your child colors, while teaching them time.