As a part of their schoolwide math-a-thon earlier this month, kids have been earning dog tags, which are apparently the coolest thing "ever." So, when we were planning activities for halloween parties at school, I immediately thought of putting together a fun little make + take halloween themed dog tag project. Surprise surprise, it was a big hit!

What you'll need -

sheets of shrink plastic (Shrinky Dinks or #6 plastic from a takeout container works great, too!)
corner rounder (optional)
single hole punch
#2 pencil
colored pencils
black sharpie (optional)
chain for connecting the tags

Cut the shrink plastic into 2" x 4" pieces. If using #6 plastic from takeout containers, you will need to sand it slightly with a fine-grit sandpaper to create a somewhat rough surface. You can use a corner rounder to make the corners smooth if you like.

Punch a hole in one end and do it a few times to make it larger than the standard single-hole punch, otherwise your chain might not fit through.

With the scratchy side of the shrink plastic face up, draw your desired image onto the plastic with a pencil. Can't think of what to draw?

Here is a simple black-line template of a few halloween pals I doodled (a la Ed Emberley) for the kids at school. Click the image to download + print out onto 8.5" x 11" paper. Have fun!

Color the images with colored pencils. (Be sure to use white colored pencils, too - they turn out amazing!) And if you want to get really fancy, you can retrace the black lines on the reverse/shiny side using a sharpie. It's really cool how even though you color lightly with the pencils, once the pieces shrink, the colors intensify. Cool, eh?

Shrink according to manufacturer's instructions - allow to cool, then strand 'em on a chain + attach to your kiddo's backpack.

Since we did them with the kids in the classroom, each kiddo was sent home with a snack-size baggie into which they put their ready-to-shrink tag and preprinted shrinking instructions. This project can easily be adapted for other holidays too, or different types of finished pieces. Shrink plastic is used in a few projects in TYV Crafting with Kids and we're always thinking of new uses for them. They were a perfect tie-in with the dog tag craze, that's for sure. Happy making! xoxo