If you’ve got a few paint chips laying around, you little ones will enjoy an afternoon of play with these little animal amigos. When play time is through, just take them apart and store flat in a ziplock baggie. You could even keep these in your purse for emergency kid meltdown moments–beats always pulling out the smartphone!

Materials

• You will need an assortment of fun and colorful paint chips. These need to be the larger size paint chips showcasing only one color (I picked mine up at Walmart).
• Printable templates (download here)
• Craft scissors
• A pen or pencil for tracing template onto paint chips

Creating The Animals
Start by downloading the free animal friends template provided here. For best results, print the templates on a heavy card stock. Then cut out the animal templates.

Trace the templates onto the various colored paint chips. Young children can help with this step–they’ll love getting involved. Have fun with the corresponding legs. It could be fun to use a different color altogether or a variation of the hue you use for the body.

On most of the animal legs, you’ll need to trace them twice onto the paint chips to be sure you have both sets of legs for your animal.

Once the animals are traced you can cut them out. An older child, ages 5 and up, could help with this step. I like to use smaller craft scissors for cutting out small items and areas but they are not crucial.

Cut into the designated slots shown on the templates.

Now it’s time to assemble your animals. Match up the slots of the animal bodies and legs. Push them together until they interlock to your liking. Your animal friend should now be able to stand on its’ own!

Repeat this process with the remaining animal friends. Enjoy!