Make a Face Activity – Five Ideas and a Free Printable

This fun printable make a face activity can be used in lots of different ways. It’s great for an ‘all about me’ theme, for making self portraits, or just for fun!

Make a face free printable

There are so many different ways you can use this ‘Make a face’ activity.

Set it up with a mirror and encourage your kids to make a self portrait, or look at photos of family and friends and ask the kids to make the face of someone they love.
You can use it for an art activity, or a fine motor activity with loose parts, or play dough.

It’s a great opportunity to learn the names of facial features and to discuss diversity and how we all have some things in common, and some things different. You could also use them to talk about emotions and what people look like when they are happy or sad.

Starting with a blank face shape (scroll to the end of this post to find the free printable ‘make a face’ template) gives kids a place to begin, but allows them to be creative and to make a face in whatever way they like. There is no right or wrong way in this open-ended activity. If your kids want to turn the face into a monster, or an alien, or if they want give it crazy long hair, or 3 eyes, that’s awesome!

This simple printable face activity can be used in lots of different ways to make lots of different faces.

Make a Face with Collage

This is a great way to make a face because you can use all kinds of different materials to make your face.

Make a face with collage

We used wool and paper scraps, and you’ll need scissors and glue too. We also used our ‘crazy faces’ free printable facial features which you can find here, or you could cut up old magazines or junk mail too.

Can you find something to stick on that looks like your hair? Can you find eyes that look like Dads? Could you make a nose out of natural materials?

Make a Face with Play Dough

Laminate the face template, or slip it into a plastic pocket, and you can use and reuse it as a playdough mat.

Make a face with play dough

It’s lots of fun to use play dough to make facial features. It would be great to use a garlic press to make lots of hair! You can also add some loose parts to your play dough set up – large googly eyes are perfect!

Make a Face with Loose Parts

This is such a fun way to make a funny face.

Make a face with loose parts

We collected various loose parts to use such as, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, popsicle sticks, pom poms, and wooden shapes. You can find a huge list of things you can use for loose parts here.

This is a great way to work out those fine motor muscles as the kids careful place and arrange the small objects to make the face, and an interesting challenge to make a self portrait with various items.

Make a Face with Pencils or Markers

This simple printable face template makes the perfect drawing prompt.

Make a face by drawing

It gives kids a place to start, so it’s especially good for reluctant drawers, and it’s still a very open-ended prompt so kids can use their imagination and be as creative as they like.

Print out a couple of copies and set up a table with pencils, markers, and a mirror for the perfect self portrait invitation to create.

Make a Face with Paint

Crayon resist with watercolor paints are one of our favourite ways to make art, and it’s a great option for making a face.

Make a face with paint

This is another great option for a self portrait, or just some fun painting and creative. We used a black permanent marker to make the fine details, then oil pastels and a watercolor palette for the colours. You could also use tempera paints, watercolor pencils, or any paint or art media you like.

Make a Face Free Printable Template.

If you want to work on some portraits, or just have making a funny face, you can use our free printable ‘make a face’ template to get started.

Make a face free printable template

This printable is an A4 sized pdf file, you will need a pdf reader such as adobe acrobat to open it. If you are printing on US ‘letter sized’ paper be sure to select ‘fit’ or ‘shrink to fit’ from your printer options.

Please remember that the printables at picklebums.com are for personal use only, you may not sell, share, or link directly to these files.

What other ideas can you come up with for this make a face activity?

I’m sure you and your kids can come up with lots of other fun ways to make a face. You could use cardboard to make 3D facial features, or you could use leaves or other natural materials. You are only limited by your imagination!

Make a face five ways, plus a free printable face template


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  1. Sharon Harding says

You have the best printables. I love simple ideas like this that can really stimulate the imagination. Thanks for sharing.

Your resources are fabulous I would like to use some of your resources.

You are welcome to download any of my free printables and use them with your own children or with your class/group if you are a teacher.