Our theme this week for Camp Mom is Owls! The owls in our neighborhood have been very loud lately... and we even had an owl decide to come live in our backyard, so my little son is loving owls right now. There are so many fun owl-themed projects and books to choose from... so we'll show you a few of our favorite ones during the next day or so.
Owl Babies Puppets
After reading Owl Babies by Martin Waddell and watching a video of the book (embedded at the end of this post), we decided to make our own owl babies! If you want to make owl babies as well, you'll need to do this project three times (or with three kids) so that you'll have three owl puppets!
Materials Needed: Cardboard, Elmers glue, black marker, scissors, googly eyes, popsicle stick, brown and yellow paper.
Directions:
1. Draw an oval on your cardboard, wings and head feathers on your brown paper, and eyes on the yellow paper.
2. Cut everything out!
3. Start gluing the pieces onto the cardboard oval. We started with the wings (I drew a little outline to show where they went with pen on the cardboard).
4. Hold the glued pieces down and press to make sure they are secure.
5. Glue the yellow eyes and stick them on.
6. Add googly eyes on top of the yellow paper eyes.
7. Glue a popsicle stick to the back of the puppet and press it down.
8. Let the glue dry... and then start again if you want three owl babies!
Language Building Activities:
- Read the book Owl Babies together
- Retell the story (using your owl puppets... if you make three).
- Talk about the shapes that you used as you made your owl puppets- triangle, oval, circle
- Talk about the colors that you see in the Owl Babies book, Owl Babies video, and in your own owl puppets!
- Go outside once it is dark and listen for owl hooting sounds. The owls are mating where we live... so there is a lot of hooting in the evening!
- Talk about what owls do at nighttime, where they live (trees/nests), how they fly, how they sleep, how they talk to each other, etc.
- Watching the video AND reading the book together... followed by retelling/re-enacting the story is a great way to build comprehension and help your child remember details. We love to read and re-read books and watch and re-watch movies... as I'm sure your little ones do too... so that really helps solidify the basic plot of the story in their minds. Asking simple WH questions about the story and characters after multiple exposures to the text or while you are reading can really help with reading comprehension! We love to predict what we think will happen next as well!
- Have your child interact with the puppets and talk to them and ask them questions. Having the owls help you retell the story is also a lot of fun and facilitates imaginative play!
Owl Babies Video
The inspiration for this puppet came from No Time For Flashcards. Check out this link to find some other fun owl books and songs.
Such a cute own craft!! I love that you didn't have have to paint it making for a fast craft!