Cowboy & Cowgirl Crafts {Guest Post}

As my toddler gets older, I like to use upcoming holidays and events that we go to during the year as a teaching tool for her. And this time of year holds a huge event for our great city….the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. I plan on taking her to the HLSR soon and wanted to incorporate some fun rodeo inspired activities to help her learn about where we will be going.

The crafts I like to choose generally cost little to no money and are usually simple and don’t require too much effort to create. I love using things we already have on hand. My daughter goes everywhere with me during the week, so I also like to minimize our trips to the craft store. Today I chose two activities for us to do that are rodeo inspired :: a cowboy hat to wear and a handprint horse to display.

Cowboy Hat

Materials

• cowboy hat printable {found here}
• printer
• two sheets of brown cardstock, thick scrapbook paper, or foam
• scissors
• stapler
• star stickers {optional}

For this activity, I am using my go-to for free printables, Scholastic. I found an awesome free printable of a cowboy hat, which can be found here. I printed out one for my daughter to color and one for our hat project.

While your cowboy hat can be made using any type of paper, I wanted the one my daughter and I made to be a little sturdier than the paper I had on hand, and I found several great options at our local craft store. I found a thick cardstock that looked like leather, which also happened to be on sale. Score! My daughter picked out a sheet of star stickers that she wanted on her hat, and if you have a toddler like mine – no project is complete without stickers.

Depending on your child’s age, you or your child can trace the hat printable onto one of the sheets of paper to make the hat and then cut it out. My daughter isn’t old enough for scissors, so I did this task while I let her color the other hat printable. I then let her decorate her hat with star stickers which she was most excited about. When she was done decorating, I used the other sheet of our purchased paper and cut a strip out of it for a band to put around my daughter’s head. I measured it to fit and then stapled the band to the hat. That’s it! You have an easy cowboy hat to wear at home or to the rodeo.

Handprint Horse

Materials

• washable, kid friendly paint
• paper
• paintbrush
• markers

This is another fun rodeo inspired project that I helped my daughter to make, and we already had all of the supplies at home which was another bonus for me. You know the drill – paint brushed on hand, hand on paper, decorate with markers to look like a horse. My daughter thought the horses would like to eat some grass, so she added in grass. I love making handprint art with my daughter, and as she gets older, she likes to add more to the drawing than just submitting her hand for painting.

There are so many activities and crafts appropriate for different ages that you can use to help your kids learn about the rodeo. I don’t consider myself crafty in the least, but a quick Internet or Pinterest search can give you tons of inspiration. Tonight we will be eating a rodeo inspired meal consisting of chili and cornbread.

What are you doing with your kids to help them learn about the rodeo?

[hr] About Laurel C.

Laurel is a wife and stay-at-home mom to her energetic two year old daughter. They live just outside of Houston. You can follow along with her at her blog, A Couple of Coopers.