Koala and kangaroo paper plate costumes

When those cute marsupials become the big thing in your household, why not make a koala or kangaroo paper plate costume. Not only are they easy to make but you could use this tutorial to make any marsupial. It’s a perfect opportunity to learn about pouched animals!

What you’ll need:

• Two paper plates
• paint
• hole punch
• String
• Stapler
• Stick tape
• hair clips or bobby pins (for the ears)

Make a koala and kangaroo paper plate costumes

1. Paint two paper plates. The colour you use to paint will depend on the animal you decide to make but hey, you can make a multicoloured koala if you like!
2. Once the paint is dry, cut one of the plates in half.
3. Staple one of the paper plate halves to the full circle plate creating the pouch.
4. Hole punch the sides of the paper plate pouch and add enough string to tie at the back of your child. Secure this area with some sticky tape. I found that it would rip otherwise.
5. Cut the remaining paper plate half into the shape of the ears. Rounded for koala and triangular for a kangaroo.
6.  Hole punch the bottom of the ears. This i where you’ll thread the hair clip through to secure them to your child’s hair. You can use bobby pins too.

Add a joey to the pouch and they are ready to play koala or kangaroo.

      

Learning about marsupials 

My children learn a lot through play and so while we were playing I gently brought in these facts about marsupials.

• All marsupial babies are called joeys
• Marsupials give birth to under developed young that have to climb into a pouch. See it in action here.
• Koalas have a backward facing pouch (hence why that koala is coming from the bottom of the pouch in the photo. I had to be accurate!)
• List all the marsupials you can think of  – Kangaroo, Koala, Tasmanian Devil, Wallaby, Quoll, Bilby, Wombat, just to name a few common of the ones.

We had a lovely time playing with our animal paper plate costumes this weekend. It’s inspired a lot of play and a lot of learning.

More Marsupial Activities

• Free printable Koala Mask
• Bellow like a koala
• Bilby Activities
• Kangaroo Puppet Play
• Koala Activities