Red Eyed Tree Frog

Reptile and amphibian weeks are in full force in the classroom! This little guy is just too darned cute not to include!

Items needed:
Large paper plate cut in half
Green Paint
Glue
Construction paper - red, black, yellow, green and orange
Scissors
pen or pencil

Getting started:

First step is to paint the paper plate. I used glossy green paint because I had it left over for a project. You can use green paint and add some glue to it to help make it shinier. Put it off to the side to dry.

Here is the cut outs for the frog. A solid green body is used and then yellow is cut to create the underbelly of the frog and create its mouth. The little hands really make the cuteness factor go up on this one!

Glue the yellow onto the green background. Then add the black eye centers to the red and glue onto the top of the frogs head.

Glue the frog to the back of the plate and glue the "hands" on top of the plate.

You can leave the plate as is I suppose but I had to take it one step further and cut notches out to create a leaf like appearance. I really love his "hands"!

Snakes and Shamrocks

Well we finished our snakes and the kids did an awesome job! We have a clothesline that runs across the room so we wrapped them around it and had them hanging up for all to see! This is a great project if you are doing anything in the reptile kingdom. Make a bunch of different types of snakes or additional reptiles and you have a habitat growing in your class room!

We have finished our shamrocks and added them to the bulletin board. Once the leprechauns are finished next week, we will place them around the board and add the pot 'o gold to complete the scene!

Reptiles and Amphibians - Turtle

Another creature from the reptile world (and my sons favorite) is the turtle! I was at the dollar store and found these styrofoam bowls and it clicked that we could use them to make the shell of a turtle.

Items needed:
1 small styrofoam bowl
yellow, and green construction paper
brown construction paper cut into small squares
brown paint
white glue
scissors
paintbrush

Getting started:

It is easier to assemble the bottom of the turtle first and then the shell. So I started out by tracing the body in yellow using the bowl.

After cutting it out, I attached the head and feet. (I managed to forget something very important. Can you guess? Put the body off to the side to dry.

The next step was to add glue to the brown paint and mix together. I wanted to be able to paint and glue in one step. After paint is mixed, cover the entire bowl with the brown paint. Add the brown paper squares around the sides and then the top.

The final step is the glue the shell to the body. I ran a ring of glue around the outside of the yellow body and placed the shell on top. It may help to let the paint dry first so there is no smearing.

Draw a couple eyeballs on or used googly eyes! It was at this point I realized I was missing something. Did you guess? His tail!

Reptiles and Amphibians - Snake

I was sick of doing the paper plate snake and found a huge stash of paper towel rolls in the closet. Looking at the curving line going around, gave me an idea for our project.

Items needed:

1 paper towel tube
green paint
yellow paint
red construction paper
2 googly eyes - medium sized
scissors
glue
paintbrush

Getting started:

I added some green paint and some yellow paint into a container without mixing. The kids love to combine paint colors. (I do too!) After the tube is done painting, I set it up on end to dry. If you have small bottles of paint, you can put the tube over it to help it stand up straight until dry.

After letting the tubes dry overnight, the kids cut out the tongue and then glue it on the snake. They also add the eyes with glue.

The final step is to cut the paper roll in a spiral. This will be difficult for preschoolers, but older and more experienced scissor cutters can do it themselves. I did this one kind of fat. You can cut it as wide or narrow as you want, but stop about two inches from the top so you still have a head!

Hibernating Bear - Update

I finally had a chance to take a picture of our big hibernating bear. I needed to do it quickly since we would be taking him down to make way for a next group of projects.
We had the kids paint large pieces of white butcher paper in brown, blue and black. After it was thoroughly dry, I cut out the cave shape (had to piece some parts together) and made the cave. The remainder of the paper was wadded up to make little boulders, and rocks.

To create the bear, I let the kids loose on white paper with brown paint. When that was dry, I sketched out a bear based on the Bear is Snoring book, added ears, eyes, nose and claws. I asked our parent helper to tape Mr. Bear onto the cave. There was a bit of a language barrier issue so she taped it on but didn't hide the tape. Whoops! My fault. Should have done a visual. Still turned out cute though.

St. Patty's Day Leprechaun

St. Patrick's Day needs a little leprechaun. I designed this for our preschoolers to create in the next few weeks. These projects also help to transition our classroom from hibernation into spring!

Items needed:
small paper plate
flesh colored paint (or make your own with white and a small amount of red and yellow)
paint brush
construction paper in green, black, orange, red and brown or pink (for ears)
medium googly eyes
glue

First we start out by painting the back of the plate. It's easier to glue everything on to the back than to the front. Put it off to the side to dry. (We will have the kids paint their plates on one day and glue another.

Cut out the different parts to the leprechaun. I started by gluing on the eyebrows and the beard.

Then glue on the ears, feet, hat and band. The eyes are glued on last. The kids will have their own version of your sample and it will not match. And that's okay. They are learning to follow instructions and expressing their creative self. That's the main goal! After we do this project, I will take pictures and show the various "interpretations!" (I had more pictures of step by step but they vanished off the camera!)

St. Patty's Day Shamrocks

I would have posted this sooner but caught the creeping crude that goes around this time of year. This is a very easy project to do with almost any age.

Items needed:
pen
white construction paper
BLEEDING tissue paper in green cut into small squares
MAKE SURE IT IS BLEEDING TISSUE OR IT WON'T WORK!
squirt bottle filled with water
scissors

To begin:

Using a pen, trace the shape of a shamrock onto the white paper using a pen. I didn't have a shamrock shape, so I created my own using a glass. It took several tries to get it almost proportionate but this will work. If working with a group of kids, write their names in pen on the backside. The ink won't bleed. Using a marker will cause the name to bleed and make it hard to read as well as bleed to the front of the design.

Bleeding tissue paper is found at most art supply stores. Michaels carries it-usually near the scrapbooking section. Have the kids add a layer of the tissue paper onto the shamrock. With smaller kids, they have a tendency to dump handfuls on. Not much is needed to create the look. You can also use some yellow and that will give you several different shades of green!

Now the fun part! I found a bottle at the hardware store. They are usually in the gardening section. But an old hairspray bottle, cleaned out can also work. Spray water over the entire piece. Kids love to spray water! This starts the bleeding process immediately!

This shows the paper completely covered in water.

After spraying, set your picture off to the side to dry completely. Depending on how much water the kids added, the drying times will differ. They can rip if too wet.

Once they are dry, the tissue paper comes right off with a brush of the hand. (Mine was still wet when I did this) You can see the beautiful coloring left behind! The kids can then cut out the shape and they are ready for hanging up!

We will be doing this project and creating a patch of clovers on the wall. I will make a four leafed one to hide in the grouping. Shh. . .