Most children adore animals. In fact, children and pets can create lifelong bonds. You may even be thinking about introducing a new addition to the family!
If that’s the case, now might a good time to start teaching your children about animals and how to treat them. Creating this cute papercraft cat can give you a good opportunity to teach your children about how to take care of a cat.
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The links below may be affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy for more information.
Taking Care of a Cat
If you’re planning to introduce a new kitten or cat to the house, your kids will be very excited! Get them involved with creating the paper cat. Pick a name for the paper cat, and have your child come up with suggestions of names for the real cat.
You could also create little paper bowls of food and water for the papercraft cat, as well as little paper fish, cat treats, and cat toys. This can help your child understand the importance of feeding a real cat as well as papercraft one!
How to Interact with a Cat
New kittens are playful and sweet, and a delight to play with. However, they’re also still learning how to socialize. If you’re planning to introduce a new pet into your household, it’s vital that your children know how to deal with it.
You could draw little black claws on the papercraft cat’s paws and warn your child about how important it is not to hurt the cat, whether deliberately or accidentally. You should also make sure that your child doesn’t disturb the cat while they’re eating or sleeping.
It’s also highly recommended to provide your cat with their own space, such as a bed or a cat play frame. You can make simple paper cat bed and play frames to go with your papercraft cat.
This can help you child understand that some things – food, treats, toys, and so on – belong to the cat. A high play frame can take the cat out of the reach of grabby pre-schooler hands!
A well-socialized cat shouldn’t pose a danger to a child, but not every cat your child will come across will be properly socialized. Regardless of whether you currently have pets in your house or plan to get pets in the future, it’s crucial to teach your child how to deal with animals.
Talking about how to deal with a cat over a fun papercraft project is preferable to having the same conversation with your child after they’ve been bitten or scratched.
Don’t try and scare your child too much. The temptation may be to warn your child that certain behaviors will lead to getting hurt and leave it there, but wouldn’t it be better to encourage your child’s empathy?
Getting your child to understand that the consequences of their actions could hurt another living being involves teaching a principle, which can be tricky.But principles are more versatile.
For example, you could simply set rules, telling your child to leave the cat alone when they’re eating, drinking, sleeping, or so on. Or, you could teach them to give the cat space when they’re tired or hungry.
Teaching basic principles to a young child isn’t easy. But in the end, it will be worth it.
How to Make a Papercraft Cat
Instructions
Step 1:
Select 2 different shades of the same colored craft paper for the basic patterns. Trace the head, body and tail on the lighter shade of the selected paper and the 2 legs on the darker shade of the same colored paper.
Trace the spot on colored craft papers of your choice and trace the inner ear and nose patterns on pink colored craft paper. Cut out the eyes directly from the template.
Step 2:
Stick the inner pink ear cutouts in the ears that are attached to the head cutout. Stick the tail spot cutout on the tip of the tail base cutout; and stick the 2 spot cutouts on the body base.
Step 3:
Stick the eyes and nose on the head. Stick the leg cutouts on the body cutout, along the bottom side.
Step 4:
Stick the tail pattern on a side of the body cutout and stick the head pattern on the top side of the body cutout. Make sure to slightly overlap the patterns while attaching them.
Step 5:
Use a sharpie or gel pen to draw the mouth and whiskers of the papercraft cat.
