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DIY Engineer Paper Plate Hat Inspired by Pete the Cat

For the month of November I joined a group of some awesome bloggers to help promote Picture Book Month. You can find additional information about Picture Book Month here.

I have been sharing the daily posts on Facebook so my readers can follow along. Today is my turn to share. I picked the author, Eric Litwin who wrote the original four Pete the Cat books. I was unaware that there were other authors of Pete the Cat books and picked one that was written by James Dean (who illustrated the original books).

Buddy had just recently selected the book Pete the Cat’s Train Trip from his first book order of the year. Since the book was new to us and on Buddy’s favorite subject – trains – I decided it would be the perfect choice for us to read and create a craft to share.

Throughout the book you see Pete wearing a stripped engineer hat. I did a quick Pinterest search and didn’t find a paper plate engineer hat and that was motiviation enough! This would be a super easy project for any train lover for birthday parties or just everyday play.

Materials Needed:

Paper Plate
Scissors
Tape
Pencil
Blue Marker

Instructions:

Read Pete the Cat’s Train Trip (optional)
Fold the paper plate in half
Cut the plate, leaving the center to form the top of the hat (trim if needed)
Using the piece of plate you cut out – cut a bill for the hat
Attach with tape to the rim of the plate to form the bill
Make stripes with a pencil so your child can color every other stripe blue
Have your child color in the stripes

Model the hat 🙂
Play trains while wearing your Engineer hats!

This was a fairly easy project. It would be a great activity for train themed parties. You could pre-cut the hats and have them ready for the kids to color. This would also make a cheap and easy addition to your child’s dress-up collection.