Have older children cut a large brown paper bag down the center of one wide edge and a circle on the bag's bottom section to create a hole large enough for the child's head to pass through. Have them cut one 6-inch hole from each of the short edges for arm holes. Children can decorate the paper bag vest in African designs, symbols and colors using markers or poster paint.
Using a hole punch, have children create eight small holes around the outside of the top half of a common paper plate. Draw and cut out two almond-shaped eye holes near the center circle of the plate. Have children twist pieces of newspaper into a long nose shape and twist two pieces of newspaper to create lips for a mouth. Glue the nose between and below the eyes, and the two lips below the nose. Allow the glue to dry before having children paint the entire plate and facial features in brown tempura paint. Once the brown paint has dried, they can adorn the mask with ceremonial African face paint, starting with short white lines under the eyes and on the chin of the mask, white dots around the bottom half of the plate rim, and outlines for the eye holes. When the white paint has also dried, string red pipe cleaners through the punched holes and twist the ends securely to the plate to serve as hair around the mask. Have children glue wooden tongue depressors on the backs of their plates to serve as handle for the masks.
Children can create their own Kufi hats to celebrate Kwanzaa or for dramatic play time. Have children cut one black strip of construction paper measuring 2 inches wide and 18 inches long. Also cut two red, two green and two yellow construction paper strips that are 1 inch wide and 12 inches long each. Measure the black strip around the child's head and secure with a stapler. Staple or glue one end of the six strips evenly distributed on half of the hat. Criss-cross all 6 colorful strips in the hat's center and adhere them to the other side of the black strip headband.
Another African craft idea is to use red, black, green and yellow strips of paper that are 2 inches long and 1/2 inch wide in paper chain jewelry. Staple the two ends of one strip together to form a ring. Thread another strip through the first and staple the ends together. Repeat the chain until the last strip, which is thread through both the last and first rings to make a bracelet or necklace.
Let children create paper dolls by either printing an African doll template from the Making Friends website or a teacher resource book on various cultures, and encourage the children to color the paper doll to look like traditional African clothing. Another option is to encourage each child to draw his own African man or woman and paste the cutout onto a thick wooden craft stick or tongue depressor to use for a role play activity, such as African storytelling.
Draw a zebra head, four legs and a tail on plain white construction paper and color black strips on them. Glue a piece of white construction paper over the outside of an empty toilet paper tube and color black stripes over the paper as well. Glue the head, legs and the tail to the toilet paper tube to create a paper zebra.