Egg Carton Caterpillar

This egg carton caterpillar is a fun way to use up some of those egg cartons left over from the Easter eggs. It would make a nice gathering activity for a den meeting. Let the scouts paint the caterpillars at the beginning of the meeting. The paint should be dry by the end of the meeting and all they need to do is attach the antenna and eyes.

Egg Carton Caterpillar

Materials: (per caterpillar)

• 6 “cups” from a cardboard egg carton
• 1 12 inch piece of string
• Assorted bright colored paints
• Paintbrushes
• 2 googly eyes
• glue
• 1 bright colored chenille stem (pipecleaner)
• scissors

Instructions:
Do 1, 2, and 3 beforehand for younger scouts

1. In four of the egg carton cups, punch a hole with a scissors on opposite sides of the cup. In the remaining two cups, just punch a hole on one side. The cups with just one hole will be the end sections of the caterpillar
2. Thread the string though the holes in the cups so all six cups are attached in a line. Knot off the string inside the two end cups so it doesn’t come out. When knotting off, leave a little slack in the string so the caterpillar can ”bend” a little bit.
3. Poke a hole with the scissors in the top of the cup which will be the caterpillar’s head.
4. If you want to do one of the requirements about mixing primary colors, let the scouts mix some of the paint colors together.
5. Give each scout a caterpillar and let him paint it.
6. After the paint dries, have the scout poke the chenille stem into the head so he has two antenna sticking out the top.
7. Have him twist the chenille stem so the antenna are curly. It might be easiest to let him curl the stem by wrapping it around a pencil.
8. Let him glue the eyes on the caterpillar.