At a Glance
This printable veterinarian hat craft helps preschool and kindergarten children engage in dramatic play while developing fine motor and scissor skills. By coloring, cutting and then wearing their new veterinary crowns, little learners can step into the shoes of community helpers, building empathy and communication skills through imaginative role play.
If your little ones love playing doctor to their furry friends, this simple veterinarian hat craft is the perfect prop to take it to the next level – perfect for some community helper dramatic play!
Like most of the crafts here at Nurtured Neurons, there’s a pre-colored template for quick paper crown making, or a plain one if you want to get a bit more creative!
And a super thing about these types of crafts is not only are they great fun to make and your children can practice lots of skills when doing so, but then you have a toy they can play with at the end – and play is just such a great way for children to learn!
And if your little learners like this they may also enjoy our build a vet craft.
Time to call in the next patient!
What Skills Can Your Children Learn And Practice?
When making this animal doctor paper crown, your children will have the chance to practice and develop some skills such as:
- Cutting Skills – if you feel they’re ready, you can let them have a go at cutting out the pieces all by themselves – they’ll need to be careful and have good scissor control if they want to cut out the hat neatly
- Pencil Control – if you print off the black and white version they can practice their pencil control and develop hand strength through coloring.
- Empathy and Compassion – Pretending to care for sick or injured animals encourages children to think about the feelings and needs of others.
And when they’re done, they’ll also be able to use their imagination, storytelling and social / communication skills – pretend checkups involve lots of communication!
How To Prepare This Veterinarian Hat Craft
First you’re going to want to download the templates by clicking on the download button at the bottom of the page – I’ve made a color and a black and white version.
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Other Materials You’ll Need:
- Safety scissors
- Card stock or craft paper
- Some good glue or a stapler
- Some coloring pencils or markers / other artsy materials for decorating
Once you’ve downloaded the templates, you’ll need to print them off onto paper or card.
Then, you can cut them out. Or if you’d like your children to get some cutting practice, you can let them have a go.
Then you simply need to cut the bands to the right size.
Then either stick or staple them into a loop to fit your child’s head.
All done!
There’s also a plain vet’s hat template:
So your little learners can decorate it just as they’d like it.
Get Even More Out of This Animal Doctor Hat Craft
Here’s a few ideas for how they could use it:
Build an Animal Hospital
Grab the veterinarian ID cards and veterinarian cut outs as well and you can set up a designated area with plush toys, clean empty plastic tubs or bottles, tweezers, and bandages (or old dish towels etc). Time to help some poorly animals!
Create Patient Charts
Bring some literacy into the mix by having your little vet write up patient charts. Give them a clipboard and some paper so they can draw pictures of the animals they are treating or practice writing their letters – ‘dog’ and ‘cat’ are great CVC words to start with!
You can find more community helper activities to play alongside it.
