Your little ones will love to create their very own turtle handprint! This fun and easy activity helps children develop fine motor skills as they trace their hands, practice cutting, glue pieces together, and color their creations. It’s a wonderful way to combine creativity with building skills.
Download our handy template to make the process of turning little handprints into little turtles smooth and enjoyable. In just a few easy steps, you’ll have an adorable turtle keepsake to treasure.
See what else they can create with their own two hands with even more handprint crafts. There are so many other “turtley” awesome animals and things to make!
Handprint Turtle Idea
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Supplies
- Colored cardstock or construction paper
- Glue stick
- Scissors
- Markers
- Turtle template (click the “click here to get this freebie” image at the end to open the form)
Directions
Start by downloading the turtle template and printing it out. Once you have the template printed, gather the materials needed for this fun activity. Get those scissors ready, and let’s help the kids bring this turtle to life!
First, help your child trace their hand on a piece of paper and cut it out. Position the handprint with the fingers pointing down and the thumb on the right side. Glue the shell to the top of the handprint.
Next, help your child draw the shapes all around the turtle’s shell.
Use a dark green marker to draw the claws on the bottom of the turtle’s feet.
Position the head on the thumb and glue it in place.
Place the eyes below the eyebrows and glue them in place.
Finally, encourage your child to glue the tail to the left side and back of the shell.
Be sure to check out our animal crafts while you’re here! Your kids will love creating more fun DIYs like this one!
Try out this cute turtle headband craft!
Easy Animal Ideas
Looking to get creative or maybe work on some essential skills with your kids? We have lots of great DIY projects and educational activities featuring your little one’s favorite animals that will make learning so fun, that they won’t even realize that they are!
Read on below for some fantastic ideas for books and interactive activities that will bring the animal kingdom to life.
Animal Books For Kids
The Fascinating Animal Book For Kids is a great book for curious kiddos! Find facts on almost any animal your child is learning about. This is a great resource to have in your home library collection.
The View At The Zoo is a silly book about all the animals at the zoo. When the people come to take a look at the animals, they see all sorts of sights! But, there’s a twist to this book that you have to read for yourself and laugh about!
Giraffes Can’t Dance is a sweet and fun book about Gerald the Giraffe. He can’t dance, but doesn’t stop trying! He finally finds his own rhythm when he meets an unlikely friend.
Paper Animal Crafts
Dog Paper Bag Puppet – Create a cute dog puppet by using a paper bag! Kids can use a few supplies and our free template to bring their puppets to life. Once finished, they can put on a puppet show, tell stories, or even have their new puppet join them for imaginative play!
Fun Turtle Paper Bag Puppet Craft
Torn Paper Owl Craft – Let’s have a hoot making a cute owl out of torn paper! This activity helps little ones develop their fine motor skills in a fun way. By tearing and gluing pieces onto our owl template, kids can enjoy a “tear-iffic” time creating their very own wise old owl!
Lion Paper Cup Craft – Roar into fun by making a lion out of a paper cup! Kids will love creating this “purr-fect” piece of art by turning an ordinary cup into the king of the animal kingdom. It’s a “mane” event they won’t want to miss.
Quail Handprint Craft – Kids will have a “feather-tastic” time tracing their hands and adding fun details to make it into a quail. It’s a great way to let their creativity take flight and learn about this cute bird!
Animal Activities
Get ready for a wild adventure with these zoo animal worksheets! They’re designed to make learning fun for preschoolers and pre-K children with cute and playful zoo animals.
Your children will complete activities that cover letter recognition, counting, memory games, patterns, simple addition, handwriting, and more. These printables offer 24 pages of engaging content including a zoo animal memory game, letter mazes, and strip puzzles.
It’s a zoo-tastic way to spark curiosity and learning in your little ones!
Kids can have some elephant sized fun with these engaging elephant worksheets! The handwriting page will help kids master the letter ‘Ee’ while improving fine motor skills as they trace each line. The Label the Elephant sheet teaches about elephant anatomy through interactive labeling and coloring activities.
The letter maze challenges young learners to find capital and lowercase ‘Ee’s in a maze of other letters to enhance their letter recognition skills. These activities are perfect for preschoolers to learn and play!
For a whale-y good time, be sure to grab these whale dot to dots! Connect the dot activities are lots of fun and enhance counting skills, hand-eye coordination, and sequencing at the same time. Once the dots are connected, kids can use their creativity to color each whale illustration.
Download and print three unique designs, offering varying difficulty levels to suit different ages and abilities. It’s a fin-tastic way for children to learn and have a blast with numbers and art!
Learn about the fascinating animals that hibernate with this hibernating animals activity pack. This set is designed for preschoolers, and promotes learning about wildlife while enhancing fine motor skills.
These worksheets include crossword puzzles, hibernation facts, and which animals hibernate during the winter. After completing these activities, it might be time for a long nap!
Share With Us
Did you make this activity with your kids or students? We’d love to feature them on our social media!
For a chance to have your child’s project featured, simply snap a picture of the completed project and post it to our Facebook page, email it to us directly by clicking here, or use #simpleeverydaymom on your social media!
Turtle Handprint Craft
Your little ones will love to create their very own turtle handprint! It's great for animal or pet themes!
Materials
- Colored cardstock or construction paper
- Glue stick
- Scissors
- Markers
- Turtle template
Instructions
- Download the turtle template, print, and cut out the pieces you need.
- Begin by tracing your child’s hand on a piece of paper, then cut it out. Position the handprint with the fingers down and the thumb on the right. Glue the shell to the top of the handprint.
- Next, draw the shapes on the shell.
- Now, draw the claws on the bottom of the turtle's legs.
- Position the head on the thumb and glue it in place.
- Place the eyes below the eyebrows and glue them in place.
- Finish up by gluing the tail to the left side and back of the shell.
Handprint Turtle Template
Sam is the crafter and founder of Simple Everyday Mom. She has been featured in Oprah Mag, Good Housekeeping, The Spruce Crafts, Country Living, The Bump and more. Read more.
Christina
Monday 7th of October 2024
My favorite so far. My grandson will love this. Excellent choice. Exactly what I was looking for
Sam
Monday 7th of October 2024
So glad it’s your favorite! Hope your grandson enjoys it as much as you think he will! :)
nancy
Friday 26th of July 2024
No link shows up for this project after putting in your email addess
Sam
Monday 29th of July 2024
Hi! After your enter your email address, it redirects you to the download page ◡̈
Duangkamon
Friday 26th of July 2024
It's cute!
Sam
Monday 29th of July 2024
Thanks so much!