Moon Craft Inspired by Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me

There’s something magical about looking up at the night sky. Observing the moon and how it changes is such a fun activity for kids. Try this art idea inspired by Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle. The easy painting technique creates a lovely moon craft. Affiliate links are included in this post.

Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me

In Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me, Monica tries to grab the moon from the sky so she can play with it. The moon is too high for her to reach. Monica asks her father to get it for her. The book is beautifully illustrated in typical Eric Carle style.

Make a Moon Craft with a Simple Painting Technique

Our activity was created by Aiden (age 2) one day while painting. I gave Aiden a piece of paper, some paints, and some brushes. Nothing particularly special about the materials. For paint palettes, I often use plastic lids from empty food containers. This time I put the paint on a large plastic lid from a gallon ice cream bucket. Aiden painted the paper for a few minutes. Then, he moved onto creating a masterpiece directly on the plastic lid. He swirled the colors around and round until he had a lovely mix of colors. Aiden said it looked like the moon from Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me. He said the moon was on fire (it was shades of red and orange).

I asked him if he would like to paint the moon using the colors in the book. He said, “Yes!” I gave him another large plastic lid. We decided what colors we should add to the lid. We added both of the blues, some white, some black, some yellow, some purple – mixing every so often until we thought our lid looked like the colors of the moon. Aiden started pouncing his paintbrush on the lid. This technique created a neat texture in the painting similar to Eric Carle’s painted moons. We smoothed the paint out in some places and pounced it in others. Aiden kept playing with the paint for a long while. When he seemed done with painting, I made a print. I took a piece of paper, placed it on top of the painted lid, and pressed down. I pulled off the paper and cut out the circle.

This is what the lid looked like covered in paint before I made the first print.

This is the resulting print. Not exactly what I was going for. There was a little too much paint on the lid.

We played in the paint some more. This time our brush strokes showed up even better. Our resulting print was to our liking.

I cut out the moon following the crease from printing on the lid. I placed the moon on a piece of black paper intended for scrapbooking – the paper is textured (although you can’t tell that in the photo). I added stars that I cut out using my Silhouette Cameo. Of course, you can cut out stars without it, or using star stickers would be another good idea.

I love how this little art project was sparked by my son’s imagination!

Looking for more space activities for kids? Try these Planet Activities for Kids!