BigBrownMonster

We pass by the neighbourhood park every so often. It’s autumn and when we are not crushing fallen leaves with our feet, it’s quite fun to try spotting the parrots that are now flying about. So its all about making parrots this week and kiddo rightly asserted that she and I have to get down to making not one but 3 birdies…

Of course it wouldn’t be fun by just drawing and cutting up 3 birdies (i thought I could simply get away with that). She wanted something that moves! Dang….so here goes……

What you need are (for each adult bird):

• 1/2 toilet roll (for the body) + 1/2 toilet roll (for head and tail)
• pipe cleaners
• coloured paper
• scissors
• stapler/sticky tape/ glue
• markers/crayons

Instructions:

• Get kiddo to choose the appropriate colours for plumage. Asking her to remember what the birds looked like in the park/zoo etc etc.
• Get kiddo to draw wings. Now here’s the fun bit for her. Got her to trace her palm twice so that the 10-finger-shaped thingy will look like wings.
• Get kiddo to cut out the shape. Assistance may be required for narrow cuts.
• While kiddo is at it, you half the toilet roll and work on the body, head and tail.
• Make a slit on the 1/2 toilet roll so that she can put her wrist in (thats for wearing the puppet)
• Half the remaining toilet roll and fold up+trim to shape a piece into its head. Trim the other piece into triangle as its tail. Retain a curved piece for the tail.
• Punch a hole on the body and the head respectively and tie them together with a pipe cleaner. Make sure that you measure kiddo’s wrist to finger length before fixing the pipe cleaner. A pipe cleaner is used so that she can maneuver the head of the puppet.
• Staple on the tail piece at the other end of the body.

• The next fun bit for kiddo is when she gets to stick on the ‘feathers’. Remind her the colours on the bird and that she is to cut up small pieces of colour paper and use them as feathers.
• Get kiddo to decorate the wings by sticking on pieces of ‘coloured feathers’ and then help kiddo staple/glue the wings onto the body.
• Kiddo can proceed with decorating the rest of the tail and head.

• As for the smallest bird, simply get kiddo to stick together some small pieces of paper, (note that she has to work in the wings, beak and tail), fold a groove in its centre and attach one end of a pipe cleaner.
• Then loop up the other end of the pipe cleaner so that it forms a comfortable ring around her index finger.

After they are dry, watch her squawk away with the family of birdies. 🙂

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