DLTK's Crafts for Kids
Styrofoam Airplane

Children Age 2+ will enjoy playing with these (if you are careful to make the wings even on either side, the airplane will really fly).  But to MAKE the craft, children should be Age 4+ as it requires a bit of dexterity.

You don't have to paint yours pumpkin orange...  I had the letter "P" on my mind when I was making this so we made the Pumpkin Plane.  If you painted it an olive green color, I think it would look like a military plane.

Materials:

• printer,
• paper,
• CLEAN styrofoam meat tray OR the top of a styrofoam egg carton
• scissors,
• paint or markers (see NOTE)

NOTE:  you can't paint styrofoam with tempra paint or washable markers.  It doesn't cover well and it will flake off when it's dry.  Acrylic paint or permanent markers work well, but most of us don't want our kids using them.  The solution I've come up with is to have the girls assemble the craft on day 1.  In the evening, I paint the craft with white acrylic paint (you can buy it for less than $1 at Walmart or the craft store and it will work for  many crafts).  It dries overnight and in the morning the girls can paint over it with tempra paint or color over it with Crayola markers!

AN ALTERNATE IDEA TO PAINTING:  I printed the template and traced it over discard paper (junk mail).  Eric colored the paper templates and then glued them on to the Styrofoam templates (a very thin coat).  We only did the top of the wings and tail that way, but both (2 paper templates) sides of the airplane body.  It works and don't have to mess around with the acrylic paints, etc.  Four of them would make a neat large mobile as well.

Instructions:

• Print the template of choice (you can do this craft free hand or choose to use the template).
• Cut out the template pieces.
• Trace the template pieces onto a clean styrofoam meat tray or the top of a styrofoam egg carton
• Cut a slit in the body of the plane near the middle for the wings.
• Cut a slit in the body of the plane at the back for the tail
• Slide the wing piece and the tail piece onto the appropriate places (it's a bit hard because the styrofoam is thick, but it will squeeze...  The tightness is what will hold your project together).
• Paint the plane the desired color.
• Add designs like windows, airline insignias, etc with paint or markers.

Templates:

• Set your page margins to zero (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP on most browsers) so the templates print out fully.
• Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.

Cargo Airplane Template (shown in photo)

Jet Airplane Template    

Print friendly version of these instructions