Animals Archives - Page 20 of 22

Make a dinosaur land

03/04/2011 by Cathy James

How to make a junk model dinosaur world by our resident paleontologist Miss B.

I love it when B heads off with the making box and reappears an hour later with a creation. This week she made a dinosaur land, with lots of added details I would never have thought of – but then she is the chief dinosaur keeper round here. If you’ve got any dinos living in your house in need of a new enclosure, you might like to include some of B’s tips for making your dinosaur happy.

The first tip from our dino ranger is to make your enclosure nice and big with lots of interesting features for your pets to explore.

Include lots of vegetation for your dinosaurs to snack on.

Add a feeding panel which you can open from the outside with a handle – so you can feed your dinosaurs without becoming a meal yourself.

A viewing panel lets you observe your dinosaurs to check they are happy and healthy.

Have you got a big cardboard box you could make something with this week?

happily shared with Upcycled Awesome and Works for me Wednesday and Kids Get Crafty ABCand123 and Tot Tuesday We Play and Science Sunday

Rabbit craft

26/01/2011 by Cathy James

Are you celebrating the Chinese new year next week? I like to observe celebrations from around the world with the children as I think it open their eyes to diverse cultures, showing them how people around the world are different but how the basis of many traditions are very similar too. We like to make Chinese style lanterns (which are perfect for practising scissors skills) and eating a Chinese meal. This year, which begins on 3rd February 2011, will be the year of the rabbit so here’s an idea for a craft you could try:

Potato Printing a Rabbit

We used potatoes and carrots to print with to make our rabbit. (Seems appropriate to use carrots, don’t you think?) Carrot printing is great for younger children as the carrots are just right for holding in little hands. Potatoes are a little more cumbersome to hold but you can make easier for the children to grasp if you cut out a handle into the top – as shown in the picture.

This rabbit design provides the opportunity to mix in some maths, as we thought about what shapes we could use to make our pictures. We decided to make a picture using just two shapes: circles and triangles.

I used a knife to cut out a triangle from the carrots, the potatoes were simply sliced in half.

We also talked about size as we used a big shape to make the body, ears and carrots and a small shape for the head, nose and carrot leaves.

We enjoyed having a specific project – working out how to form our rabbits and follow our instructions to create the pictures – but it was great to add in time at for some free style printing too, to see what other designs we could come up with using the circles and triangles.

More Chinese New Year activities

Raise a global child! Exploring festivals from different countries and cultures is a wonderful way to learn about the world. You can see our archive of Chinese New Year activities here.

Printable bird and bird house set

18/01/2011 by Cathy James

Valerie over at the Frugal Family Fun Blog has such great ideas and we love the crafts she does with her two girls. When we saw her post about a printable bird house play set we thought they were so cute we’d have to try and make some. The houses can be made from card, or even a recycled cereal box, and Valerie has given us all a template to use which means they are so easy to make.

B, who’s seven, managed to do all the stages by herself: tracing round the template, cutting, folding and sticking and she is really pleased with her birdhouse. She decided to leave the roof un-stuck so she could put some furniture inside and use it as a play house. The house was a little too tricky for L, who is four, to make by herself but she got involved drawing a pattern which we used to make the roof, and she’s really enjoying all the small world play now the houses are finished. We made some extra houses to hang in the window as decorations too and for these we stuck the roofs down. I think the co-ordinating roofs and perches make this a very stylish neighbourhood! We used recycled wrapping paper to make them but they’d be the perfect way to re-use your children’s art work too.

Printable bird template

Of course then we decided we needed someone to come and live in our bird street so we made a little flock of birds. If you’d like to make some the same as ours you can use this Printable bird template, which works out a great size to match with Valerie’s bird house. All you need to do is draw round the bird template on card, adding a slit where you can insert the wings. The wings are made from a piece of paper folded into a concertina and pushed through the slot in the bird’s body. You can make a hole above the wings if you want to hang them up on a cotton thread, or add a base so they can stand up if you’d like to play with them. You’ll find both options available on the template.

We used the same paper for the birds wings as we did the roofs of the houses, so it turned out to be a good matching game too, making sure all the birds got back to their own house. A big thank you to Valerie for the idea and the how-to bird house template. If you don’t already know the Frugal Family Fun Blog do pop by for a visit as I know you will love her ideas.

happily shared with Kids Get Crafty, Upcycled Awesome and Works for me Wednesday and Preschool Corner and Craft Schooling Sunday and No Time For Flashcards and Making Mondays Marvellous and and Mad Skills and Mad Skills Monday and Made by You Monday and Homemaker Monday and Sumo’s Sweet Stuff and Today’s Creative Blog and ABC and 123 and Something for the Weekend

Pompom robin

08/12/2010 by Cathy James

…. Click here …. for your guide to a cosy and connected winter with your family.

QUICK RESOURCE >> Download your ready-made Nativity Unit here

How to make a pompom robin

You can use this robin as a Christmas decoration or make a family of them to play with. It’s probably better suited to children aged 6 plus (my 4 year old hasn’t got the patience to make it, but my 7 year old loves them) and is a nice craft to do an a cold winter’s day as you sit on the sofa and chat.

You will need: card to make two rings, scissors, red yarn, brown yarn, glue, card to make eyes and a beak

1. Cut two circles from a piece of card. We made ours about 7cm in diameter.

2. Cut an inner circle in both the circles. The bigger you make this circle, the longer it will take you to complete your pompom. We made ours around 3 cm in diameter.

3. Start by making the red breast. Take 75cm lengths of yarn and wind them around the ring. Keep them close together, just where you want the red breast to be.

4. Use 75cm lengths of brown yarn to wind around the remaining section of the ring. Keep adding in lengths of yarn until your ring is full and there is no space left in the centre to thread any more yarn – but remember to just keep the red yarn to one section.

5. Use some scissors to cut around the outer edge of the ring, so the yarn fills out to create a ball.

6. Take another length of yarn and tie round, inside the two rings of card. Knot tightly to hold all the threads of yarn in place. If you’re making a decoration you can use the long lengths of yarn to hang it up, otherwise you can trim them.

7. Tear off the rings of card and fluff out your pompom.

8. Add eyes and a beak and you have a fluffy little robin.

Why not make some smaller ones to create a family?

Let’s make this winter the year when we delight in the cold and the dark.

Gather your children, get cosy, and make memories and connections together.

I’ll show you how with this guide to a cosy and connected winter:

…. CLICK HERE FOR YOUR GUIDE ….

Junk model horse riding stables

09/11/2010 by Cathy James

We’re getting ready for the Carnival of Junk Play on Friday 3rd December!

What do you think of our riding school? We have stables, jumps, a daisy filled paddock and some prize winning rosettes – and all made for free using re-cycled materials from our beloved making box. B has been off school ill this week and we needed a good ‘sitting down’ activity to keep us busy and cheer us up – and this is what we made. It was a totally spontaneous project, put together after a rummage through the junk box to see what materials we could find.

The base is made from a big piece of cardboard from a packing box, which happened to have a circular shape marked out in the centre which seemed to say ‘paddock’! The jump is made from two Smarties tubes, turned inside out, with a wooden skewer, snapped in half and poked through the tubes to make the cross bars.

The stables are made from tissue boxes, and the one on the end which has proper stable doors is made from a teabag box. We covered them in sugar paper, held in place with sticky tape – as you know we can’t wait for glue to dry when we want to get playing. The prize winning rosettes are made from little gift bows salvaged from some presents, with a ribbon made from sugar paper.

We have a bucket with a pipe-cleaner handle, wool for straw and a biscuit tray cut up and stuck inside each stable to make a feeding trough (there’s probably a proper horsey word for that isn’t there?) The bunting is made from wool, old wrapping paper and held up on wooden skewers. And the paddock was painted with poster paint, sprinkled with a little glitter while it was still wet, and with some daisies (cut from a remnant of edging from my sewing basket) glued on.

Not all our junk models are this grand – L’s boat was very simple, but they both sum up what I love best about junk modelling:

it’s recycled, it costs nothing, it’s creative and it’s makes a toy with lots more play value to it.

Want more happy handmade crafts?

Our Happy Handmade resource is bursting with colourful and imaginative crafts and DIY toys that are designed to add even more colour and creativity to your home. With easy-to-follow tutorials and free patterns and printables, you can read, make, and start playing today! See more of Happy Handmade here.

Pine cone crafts

25/10/2010 by Cathy James

I love putting out some goodies for the girls to pounce on when they come home from school and then seeing what they come up with. Last week they had a selection of wool, pine cones, ribbons and feathers – and they decided to make some birds. They used craft glue to stick their materials to the pine cone and here are their creations.

We tied B’s bird to the end of our number line, which happens to hang over the radiator in the kitchen – the perfect place for our cat to sit and make swipes at the pine cone bird. L, ever since she started imaginative play, has always centred it around families so I wasn’t surprised she made a nest full of birds.

I like to see how they both take the same materials but add their own spin to what they make. It’s also great to see that 4 year old L is starting to conceive an idea and is now able, all by herself, to put together the bits and pieces she needs to bring her design to life.

What have you got lying around the house and garden that your children could make with?

And don’t forget it’s the Messy Play Carnival here on Friday – come and link a post!

happily shared with We Play at Childhood 101 and ABCand123 and Upcycled Awesome