Cardboard Tube Family Craft

Continuing our fun learning about families, we created cardboard tube families for our craft this week. These cardboard tube families make for fun pretend play in a block, housekeeping, or dramatic play center. They also really encourage kids to engage in imaginative play using family members of their very own! Hands-on imaginative play facilitates building vocabulary, strengthening social skills, and developing decision making through role playing.

FIND EVEN MORE FAMILY THEME ACTIVITIES IN OUR PRINTABLE LESSON PLANS

FOR HOME PRESCHOOL AND PRESCHOOL CLASSROOMS.

Materials Needed

Here’s what you’ll need to create your cardboard tube family:

• cardboard tubes
• paint
• paintbrushes
• googly eyes
• yarn
• scissors
• glue
• black marker

Getting Started

After you’ve gathered your materials, the first step in creating a cardboard tube family is to cut them down to size to represent the members of your family. We had a dad, mom, older sister, and toddler sister for our family.

Once the tubes are cut, draw a line around the top portion to separate the head from the body. This helps in defining these areas for painting. We had fun choosing all the different colors for each family member and even added some pink and yellow polka dots to the kids “clothes!”

While the cardboard tubes were drying, we chose hair color for each family member using yarn. I found a multicolored spool of yarn at Walmart that included a variety of shades of brown as well as a yellow one. This was perfect for each of our family’s hair color.

Cut the yarn into pieces that suit the length of hair you are aiming for. For longer hair, we used about 24-30 inches and for shorter hair 12-18 inches. Stretch the yarn out holding each end, then continuously fold it in half making each end meet.

After you have your desired length, take the loose piece of yarn and wrap it around the center. This is excellent fine motor practice for little hands wrapping and manipulating the yarn. Tie the yarn off and then glue it to the inner portion of the tube.

Now it’s time to add the eyes and mouth. Using a little bit of glue, adhere the googly eyes to the tube and allow them to dry in place.

Draw the mouth on with a marker. We used a black marker. Feel free to choose any color you like!

Once all of the family members have their hair, eyes, and mouth you can start playing!

I enjoyed listening to the girls role play with their cardboard tube family. It’s interesting to hear what runs through their imaginations as they play with their little pretend family.

We hope you enjoy trying out this cardboard tube family craft! So far it’s a perfect addition to our imaginative housekeeping and block area.

To continue the fun and learning, your kids might also enjoy our family sensory bin.

MORE FAMILY THEME FUN WITH PRINTABLE LESSON PLANS

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.

This family theme pack includes semi-editable lesson plans and hands-on activities for a week full of math, reading, & science learning activities to learn about families.

Watch this short video to see just a few examples of the types of activities and printables included in this set:

The full Family Theme Lesson Plan Pack also includes:

1) Family Graph (for whole group)
2) Family Cards (for sorting, counting, graphing, patterning and more)
3) Letter Matching Family Game Mats and Alphabet Family Members (uppercase and lowercase)
4) Family Homes Number Matching Activity
5) Shape Family Matching
6) Sibling Survey Recording Sheet
7) Family Letter Puzzles
8) Small Family Number Cards (0-35)
9) Large Family Number Cards (1-10)
10) Family Member Class Book
11) Family Word Cards
12) Family Roll and Graph Game

GET YOUR LESSON PLANS

Home Preschool Family Theme Lesson Plans

Preschool Classroom Family Theme Lesson Plans

Also available on Teachers Pay Teachers.