Paper Plate Clucking Easter Chicken

I have been meaning to write this post for over two years, yet every time I make these chickens they get taken into school by The Girls and used and used until they crumble to pieces.

I should be flattered that something I used to make long before I ever imagined living in the country and owning actual chickens that lay actual eggs and poo all over the lawn, long before I had children of my own, should be so popular.

Did you ever make telephones using baked bean cans and string as a child? Did you ever just tug on that string? It makes a clucking sound. And you can use a similar technique to make your own paper plate clucking Easter chicken.

You need:

plastic disposable cups

string

paper plates

Duck Tape

and googly eyes!

I also used a glue gun.

Firstly you need to take two squares of Duck Tape and put one on either die of the base of the cup. This is to help strengthen the cup against the relentless tugging it will get!

Next, punch a small hole through the base of the cup, and both layers of Duck Tape. I used a corkscrew- it’s hard work getting through the Duck Tape, so a pencil lead will break. It needs to be only a touch wider that the width of the string.

Thread a length of string through the cup, securing on the base with a large knot ( knot a few times over the first knot). You can cover this with an extra layer of Duck Tape for security. Run the string down and out of the cup, leaving about 30cm, then tie another knot in the bottom end of the string.

Obviously, if you want this for entertainment purposes, you can just leave the cup as it is at this point. Hold the cup with the base at the top, like a bell, then tug downward on the string.

But to make a chicken to go with the clucking noise, then you will need two paper plates. You need to cut a rough chicken outline from the paper plate, leaving the bottom arc of the plate intact. You will be using the bottom side of the paper plate as he outside of your chicken so bear this in mind if you are drawing pen lines to guide your cutting. You need two of these. You can use the cutaway portion to make two wings if you wish. Just bear in mind that they need to be mirror images of each other rather than carbon copies.

Stick the wings to the sides of your chicken- I just glued the front edge so that the end of the wing pokes out.

Tape the cup to the inside of one side of the chicken. Use a lot of tape. This may make the chicken bend a little round the cup form but that’s fine.

Then glue the front edge of the chickens together, and the rear ends. Then cover those ends with more tape. This helps with the security of the structure. I then taped the cup to the bottom edge of both paper plates. You cannot use the glue gun because it will melt the cup and then the whole thing will crumple. I also found out the hard way that staplers don’t work.

Lastly add googly eyes, and a beak.