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Make expressive faces out of paper

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An activity that just uses paper and is easy to do! Create faces with moving parts for frowning, pouting, smiling ... a whole range of emotions that change when a part turns.

A fun way of learning to identify facial expressions and emotions!

Materials:

  • Canson® Colorline® paper (220 g/m²): white and various colours of your choice.
  • Brass paper fasteners (brads)
  • Pair of compasses
  • Coloured pencils
  • Scissors

Cutting out the faces

Trace and cut out circles approximately 15 cm in diameter.

Making the face parts

Cut out the face parts: eyes, nose, moustache, eyebrows, cheekbones, mouth, etc.

To make cutting-out easier, the parts can be stylised: for example, a triangle for the nose, a semi-circle for the mouth.

The eyes and cheekbones can be coloured with coloured pencils.

Positioning and gluing

When all the parts are ready, arrange them on the face, ensuring that the fixed parts (which will be glued) will not obstruct the moving parts.

Glue the fixed parts: the cheekbones and nose.

Preparing the moving parts

The remaining parts will be the ones that move. Make a small hole in the centre of each one, for example by using a compass point.

Attaching the moving parts

To finish, attach each moving part with a small brass fastener (or brad), taking care not to fasten them too tightly so that the parts will move readily.

You can devise a whole host of activities using this item: for example, suggesting an emotion and asking the children to create that expression on the paper face (anger, sadness, joy, doubt, etc.).