​Funky Monkey Hats
A Fun Activity

Making Funky Monkey Hats out of paper plates is a fun and easy activity for all ages. Use your lessons to teach kids about primates while they create hats to transform themselves into the monkeys they love. Make it part of a conservation lesson, an art project, a party project, a fundraising activity, or simply for the fun of it. 

Illustration A

What you'll need:

• Ordinary plain white dinner-size paper plates
• Craft paper or brown paper bag
• Pencil
• Black marker
• Scissors
• Glue stick

What to do:

1. Pierce the paper plate with the scissors near the interior of the fluted edge of the plate. You don't want to start cutting in from the outside because you need the entire edge of the plate to be intact in order to stay on your head as a hat. 
2. Following the interior edge of the plate's fluting, cut almost all the way around the plate, leaving an area of approximately 2-3 inches uncut. This will become the monkey's neck.
3. Cut up from the fluted area and cut around a circle in the middle of the plate. This will be the monkey's face.
4. On the inside of the brown paper bag, where there's no writing, draw the shapes of the monkey's two ears and face.  Draw the eyes, nose, and mouth onto the face, as in Illustration A.
5. Cut out the ears and face shapes, and glue them onto the circular part remaining on the inside of the plate.
6. Wear it yourself or give it to a friend. 

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Here's what they look like when you're done:

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Copyright © New England Primate Conservancy 2013. You may freely use, copy and share these Learning Activities for educational purposes.
For questions or comments, e-mail us at info@neprimateconservancy.org