Fun to make in childcare! A special feature of horse craft ideas
Here’s an introduction to popular horse crafts for preschools and kindergartens.
Horses are familiar, friendly animals for children, often appearing in picture books and stories.
Using everyday materials like paper cups, paper plates, and milk cartons, these horse crafts spark children’s creativity and let them enjoy steps like coloring and gluing.
After they’re finished, kids can play pretend together with their horses or use them as decorations, expanding the fun beyond the craft itself.
We’ve gathered age-appropriate ideas, so feel free to incorporate them into your class activities.
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Fun to make in childcare! A collection of horse craft ideas (1–10)
Let’s make horse hoof sounds!
The sound of hooves striking the ground is quite distinctive, isn’t it? In this idea, we recreate that “pakaran” sound using a simple craft.
You’ll need three paper cups, one pair of chopsticks, and some twine.
Prepare three pieces of twine in different lengths.
First, use an awl to make a hole in the center of the bottom of each paper cup.
Thread the twine through the hole and secure it on the inside with tape.
Finally, fasten the other ends of the twine to the chopsticks in order from shortest to longest, and you’re done! Hold the chopsticks with both hands and press the paper cups against a hard surface like a desk or flooring.
If you tap them in a steady rhythm from the shortest to the longest, it should sound like “pakaran,” just like hooves.
Role-play! Cardboard Crafts
This is a piece sold as a horse headgear kit, but since you can see a rough unfolded pattern in the video, I think it’s possible to make it yourself.
The official purchase page also offers a free template for the mane, so make use of that as you build.
Prepare some thin cardboard, draw the unfolded pattern, cut it out, and use a ruler or a scoring tool on the parts that will be mountain folds.
Have fun painting it with paints and expressing your own unique horse.
Once it’s finished, put it on your head and play by fully becoming a horse.
Craft Challenge! Clippity-Clop Horse Riding
Let me introduce an idea for making a horse that makes a clacking sound when it moves.
Use one milk carton each for the head and neck, and two cartons each for the body and legs.
Use Meiji “Oishii Gyunyu,” the type with a screw cap.
The main step in this idea is connecting the milk cartons to form the shape of a horse.
Use masking tape to fix each part in place, and attach rubber bands to the caps of the milk cartons where the head connects to the neck and the body connects to the legs.
This creates a restoring force that returns the parts to their original position after moving, making the motion smoother.
Draw eyes on the face, attach a string, and it’s complete.
Fun to make in childcare! A special feature on horse-themed craft ideas (11–20)
Easy and cute! Horse origami
Fold the origami paper in half twice to make a square, crease well, then unfold.
Next, fold the left and right edges to meet the center crease.
Flip the paper over, then fold the bottom edge up to meet the center line.
Fold that raised section back down to align with the bottom edge, and flip the paper over again.
Now fold all four corners inward to form triangles.
Open the pocket in the middle of the bottom triangle and squash it flat; then fold the two lower corners of the opened section into small triangles to create the horse’s nose.
For the top triangle, open the folded part and squash it into a diamond, then fold only the upper half downward.
Make a mountain fold about 7 mm wide, and along that crease, cut slits from the center of the triangle outward to both sides.
Open the cut section into a rectangle, tuck the two top corners to the back, and reform it into a triangle.
Flip this triangle to the other side and make diagonal pleated folds to form the mane.
Fold up the remaining lower triangle of the diamond to make the ears, and tuck the left and right edges inward to create the horse’s long, slender outline.
Finally, fold the corners to refine the outline, and you’re done!
Perfect for wall decorations! Cute little horses.
A perfect idea for wall decorations! Let me show you how to make a horse using construction paper.
Basically, you just cut out parts from the paper and glue them together, so it’s an activity even young children can enjoy.
It’s best for adults to prepare the small pieces in advance, but the larger pieces are great for scissor practice—draw clear cutting lines and let the kids cut them out.
Choose any color of construction paper you like for the clothes.
Adding patterns with stickers or crayons would be fun too!
A little horse to enjoy with a glove theater
@amico.369 2023 was the year my wish to ride a horse came true. I even turned it into a glove theater performance! lol#Glove TheaterChildcareNow available: three acclaimed books!#amico’s glove theater
♪ Original Song – Various by amico. – amico’s Glove Theater♪
How about making a glove horse that can also be used as a glove theater prop? You’ll need a brown glove, felt fabric, construction paper, and yarn.
Use the thumb of the glove as the head and the other four fingers as the legs.
First, make the horse’s face out of felt and attach it to the thumb.
Then glue hooves made from construction paper to the tips of the remaining fingers.
Finally, bundle some yarn to make a tail and glue it to the palm side, facing outward.
When performing as a glove theater, face the back of your hand forward so it looks like a horse.
Ideas for making horses out of clay
When children move up to the preschool class, they tend to play with clay more often.
So this time, I’d like to share an idea for making a horse out of clay.
The steps are: roll a large piece of clay into an oval to form the body, then stretch and shape the clay to create the neck and legs.
Add the head, mane, and tail by building them up with additional clay.
This idea uses oil-based clay, but if you’re using paper clay, you can let it dry and enjoy painting it with colors.
That way, it can also be used as a decoration.