Pencil Toppers

What You Need:

• Pencil
• Styrofoam ball
• Glue
• Googly eyes
• Sharpie markers or tempera paints, paintbrushes
• Stickers
• Sewing pins
• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Writing paper

What You Do:

1. Have her pick a size of Styrofoam ball. Show her how she can poke the eraser end of the pencil into the Styrofoam; the ball will stick on the pencil’s end and stay there.
2. Have her decide how she’d like to decorate the pencil topper ball, perhaps with stickers and sharpie markers. She might decide to color her topper like a globe, pumpkin, beach ball, or other round object. (Use sharpie markers or tempera paints as they apply better to Styrofoam than regular markers.)
3. Or she could pick an animal creature and create it by gluing on googly eyes and drawing the animal’s features with sharpies. For example, to do an alien, use 2 sewing pins (with colored balls on top) sticking in top of Styrofoam make great antennae.
4. Lastly, have her use the pencil with the pencil topper to write a bit about the creature she created or the design she made, and why she chose that creature or design. She can look at the pencil topper to inspire her writing.

If she enjoyed this activity, she can create more pencil toppers and do more writing. If she is like many kids, she can never have too many pencil toppers. And as a parent you can never have too many writing prompts!