Texture Exploration + Sea Stars = Lots of Preschool Fun!

Playing with different textures can be an exciting sensory experience for your preschoolers and early ed students. Trish at Preschool Playbook shares a spectacular craft activity that provides some good old fashioned texture fun with an ocean twist!

Supplies You'll Need
- Recycled cardboard or stiff card stock
- Sandpaper
- School glue
- Colored decorating sugar crystals/sprinkles
- Kids craft scissors
- Kids paint brushes
- Sticky tack

Begin by creating a starfish cut out from the recycled cardboard or card stock. If you're working with younger students you may wish to create a starfish template before beginning the craft, but older students will enjoy the challenge of creating their own sea star! Provide your students with shallow dishes of school glue and a paint brush, instructing them to cover their starfish cut out with a thin layer of adhesive. Once this is complete, invite them to pour an even coating of colored sugar crystals all over the sea star. (Note: This craft is messy so be sure to cover work spaces with old sheets, towels, or newspapers!) Help your students shake off the extra crystals, then set their colorful creations aside to dry.

Once the glue has set, provide your students with a piece of sandpaper and invite them to attach their sea star to the paper with glue and small pieces of sticky tack placed in the center of the star and at the end of each "arm". Not only will this provide the starfish with extra strength, it will add a bit of dimension to the project. How you decorate the rest of the sandpaper is up to you! Trish suggests using small sea shells, but you could also use stickers, provide markers for your students to draw other sea life, or even leave them plain!

Preschool Playbook: Starfish on the Sand