Category Archives: Picture Book Projects

A School of Sharing

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school of sharingJoin this beautiful school of fish with their bright, sparkling scales! These easy-to-make fish were created with poster board and construction paper. Then we grabbed a set of sparkling rainbow scales and had a glittery share-fest. That’s right! You could only stick your scales on other peoples’ fish!

We read The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister (North-South Books, 1992). With his sparkling silver scales, Rainbow Fish is the most beautiful fish in the ocean. He’s also the most stuck up, making it clear that he’s too beautiful to accept invitations to play. When a little fish dares to ask for a silver scale, Rainbow Fish rudely tells him to go away. That does it. The other fish decide to ignore the snobby Rainbow Fish. With no audience to admire him, Rainbow Fish grows lonely. Seeking the council of the wise octopus, she advises him to give his shining scales away to the other fish. Only then will he discover what happiness is. So Rainbow Fish gives away his silver scales, and as he sees them glittering and flashing around him on the other fish, he realizes that he finally feels at home among his new friends.

You’ll need:

  • Poster board
  • A piece of self-adhesive foam (mine was a 1.75″ x 3″ oval )
  • 2 wiggle eyes
  • Hole punch
  • Construction paper
  • Small bits of cellophane
  • 1 pipe cleaner
  • Rainbow scales (more on this below!)
  • Scissors, glue for construction
  • Markers for decorating

Cut a fish shape from poster boar (we offered a choice of dark blue, purple, and light blue poster board). Because we wanted to leave plenty of room for decoration, our fish was extra-large (16″ from nose to end of tail). Here’s the outline:

fish shape

If you’d like a fish that fits on an 11″ x 17″ piece of paper, here’s the large fish template. Need something smaller? This small fish template fits on an 8.5″ x 11″ pieces of paper. I recommend cutting the fish shapes out in advance of story time. Another thing to cut in advance? Construction paper scales. We offered strips of purple, yellow, dark blue, and pink.

fish scalesTo create puffy lips for your fish, start with an oval of self-adhesive craft foam.

fish lips step1

Peel and stick it over the fish’s mouth.

fish lips step 2

Finally, use scissors to cut a smiley face in the foam.

fish lips step 3

Glue (or hot glue) a wiggle eye on both sides of the fish, and punch a hole in the top fin.

hole punch and fish eye

Decorate both sides of your fish with the construction paper scales and pieces of cellophane to add some shimmer (we offered blue and iridescent cello to add some shimmer). Just make sure you don’t cover the hole you punched in the top fin! Use markers to add some designs if you’d like. The final step is to loop a pipe cleaner through the hole so you can carry your fish easily.

completed fishNow for the sharing game…and…duh duh DUH…an EPIC STORY TIME CRAFTING FAIL!

rainbow scalesLook at these beautiful glittering scales! I found some sheets of self-adhesive hologram paper at Party City. Marissa painstakingly cut and peeled zillions of scales, and stuck each set on mylar. We tested peeling the scales off the mylar to make sure kids could do it quickly and easily.

It worked! Great. No problem.

To play the sharing game, we first gave kids a silver scale to start their fish off. Then we gave them a set of 4 scales (as seen above). The kids mingled around the gallery, sticking scales from their set onto other kids’ fish, making sure to share each color with a new person. At the same time, kids were accepting scales from other kids (the only rule was that you couldn’t accept a repeat color). Marissa, Joani and I circulated with extra sets of scales, to make sure no fish were going to be left out.

At least, that’s how we planned it.

Somehow, overnight, the hologram paper cooked onto the mylar. They were now impossible to peel off. Look at the scales again. Do you see how wrinkled the red one is at the top? That’s from me scrabbling at it with my fingernails, going “Nooo! No! NOOOO!”

rainbow scale failNo scale stickers meant no sharing game. Refusing to admit defeat, I sent Marissa and Joani over to quickly cut the strips of scales into individual scales. To buy them some cutting time, I whipped a roll of hologram smiley face stickers out of the cabinet.

smiley stickersI asked the kids to line up and, one at a time, tell me something nice that they had done for someone recently. Their good deed earned their fish a smiley face sticker AND a trip to see Marissa and Joani to get a set of scales hot glued onto their fish. Sure, it wasn’t the sharing game, but you still got a sparkly fish in the end.

one fishIf I was to do this again, I would definitely do the original sharing game. But I would use metallic dot stickers cut in half to replicate fish scales.

dot sticker fish scalesBecause I’ve learned my lesson. Peel the stickers off the original paper they come on. Don’t stick them on anything except the final product. Oooooooh yes.Interested in some other sharing and cooperative story times? Try this flower pot exchange, or these awesome viking vs. pirate cooperative games.

Walk on the Wild Side

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walk on the wild sideDare to be different! Stroll down the street with your skunk. What could possibly go wrong?

We read Don’t Take Your Snake for a Stroll, written by Karin Ireland, and illustrated by David Catrow (Harcourt, 2003). What happens when you take a pig shopping, an elephant to the beach, a duck to a wedding, or a rhinoceros to a swing party? Trust me, it’s not good. This hilarious book had our story time kids in stitches. Not only are the rhymes fun and fantastic, the stupendous illustrations show you exactly what happens when you take a coyote out for a night on the town!

You’ll need:

  • 1 box (mine was 4 ½” X 4 ½” x 9” – a large tissue box works!)
  • Construction paper
  • 1 rubber band
  • 1 paper cup
  • 1 pair of wiggle eyes (optional)
  • 4 wheels (optional – more on this below)
  • A 36″ piece of yarn or string
  • Markers for decorating
  • Scissors, tape, glue for construction
  • Hot glue

Wrap a box with your choice of construction paper, then slide a rubber band “collar” onto the box. Add legs, tail, ears, mouth, eyes, and a nose. A paper cup makes a terrific snout, should you need one (I recommend attaching it to the box with hot glue). We had pieces of self-adhesive foam on hand for noses and mouths, as well as Twizteez wire for whiskers. We made a few example critters to get the creative juices flowing…

skunkmonkeymouseoctopusBecause we intended to take our animals out on the sidewalk, we put the boxes on wheels. I used these plastic wheels from Kelvin Educational.

wheelsThread the wheels on pieces of bamboo skewer, and then thread the skewers through drinking straws taped to the bottom of the box like so:

axles and wheelsYou could also use wooden spools instead of plastic wheels. Or, if you’re planning to stay indoors, skip the wheels and just drag the box on the floor (like the dog from this post). No matter yours means of locomotion, just make sure your animal’s arms and/or legs don’t drag on the ground. Ditto for the tail. Tie a piece of yarn to the collar, and hit the sidewalks!

skunk on the street 1Sure, you might get a few curious stares…

skunk on the street 2Well, let them stare! Walk with poise and confidence. And as you’re walking, say to yourself “Me and my skunk look great. And darn it, we feel great too!”

skunk on the street 3Er. Just make sure you say it, don’t spray it.

skunk on the street 4Did you spot the mouse on a walk too? Look by the newspaper boxes!

Will The Real Sasquatch Please Stand Up?

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the real sasquatchIt’s tall, furry, reclusive, and tree-hugging. Long considered to be a myth, we’re going to prove that the elusive sasquatch does, in fact, exist.

We read Larf by Ashley Spires (Kids Can Press, 2012). Larf is a sasquatch. The only sasquatch in the world. He likes his quiet life in the woods with his bunny, Eric. But one day, while reading the newspaper, Larf learns that a sasquatch is scheduled to make an appearance at a nearby city. Another sasquatch? Despite his love for solitude, Larf decides to brave the trip to see if there is someone like him. Navigating the city (with Eric in a baby bjorn), Larf is scared, anxious, self-conscious, and full of doubts. But he sticks it out, and discovers that the sasquatch is…a fake. Disappointed, Larf is waiting for the bus to take him home, when someone compliments him on his bunny. Lo and behold! It’s another sasquatch! Shurl (with her companion bird, Patricia) came to the city thinking she was the only sasquatch. It looks like the two loners, are not longer lonely!

You’ll need:

  • 1 large oatmeal container
  • 1 sasquatch parts template, printed on 8.5″ x 11″ paper
  • 2 paper towel tubes (make sure they’re the same height)
  • Some tagboard or brown poster board
  • Dark brown, light brown, and white construction paper
  • 1 piece of crepe paper streamer (mine was approximately 27″)
  • Several large plastic buttons for counterweights, if needed
  • Scissors, glue, and tape for construction
  • Markers for decorating
  • Hot glue

The trickiest part of the this project is getting the sasquatch to balance on its paper towel tube legs. Other than that, it’s very simple, and the templates for all the project parts can be found on the sasquatch parts template. You’ll need lots of construction paper fringes too.

We’ll build from the bottom up! Trace two feet from the template onto tagboard, card board, or heavy-duty poster board. Hot glue the feet to the bottom of a pair of paper towel tubes, then wrap the tubes with several rows of brown construction paper fringe. Use markers to add toenails if you’d like.

sasquatch legsSet the legs aside for a moment. Wrap an oatmeal container with brown construction paper. Add a fringe of brown construction paper around the bottom of the container like a skirt. Trace the face and ears from the template onto light brown construction paper, then tape or glue them to the container. Add eyes, eyebrows, and draw a nose and mouth. Add brown construction paper fringes around the face and head.

faceLarf wears a scarf in the book, so we added a scarf (and a t-shirt) to our sasquatches. The t-shirt was a 5″ x 18″ piece of white construction paper. Kids used markers to draw a design on the t-shirt, then wrapped it around the middle of the oatmeal container. The scarf was a 27″ piece of crepe paper streamer (fringed on the ends of course). Some kids made hair bows out of crepe paper streamers as well. Very cute!

To make the arms, trace the arm template onto 2 pieces of tagboard, add some hair fringes, and hot glue the arms to the sides of the oatmeal container (you can’t see them in the below photo, but I added white short-sleeved t-shirt sleeves to the arms too). Cut some thumbs into the hands, then curl the arms around the chest and hot glue the hands together. Your sasquatch’s arms will now form a circle in front of his/her chest like so:

attached armsNow for the trickiest step. Hot gluing the legs to the bottom of the oatmeal container. Stand the legs up on a level surface and lower the body on top of them. You’ll know right away if the body needs to be adjusted left, right, forward, or backward. When you think you’ve struck the right balance, remove the body, squeeze some hot glue around the rims of the leg tubes, and gently lower the body on top of the hot glue.

If your sasquatch is still a little wobbly, use large plastic buttons as counterweights. Hot glue them to the underside of the body – front or back – as needed. Here’s a shot of the underside of my sasquatch, with a couple button counterweights attached.

counterbalance buttonsThe sasquatch is finished, but we’re not quite done with the project! You’ll notice a tree and bunny shape on the template. We made trees (with brown paper trunks) and bunnies (with white pom-pom tails) as prizes for a sasquatch finding game.

tree and bunnyOutside, we collected the sasquatches and hid them all over the library’s plaza. Then we shouted “1-2-3-Go!” and the kids dashed off to locate their furry friends.

taking offthe searchsasquatch foundThe reward for discovery was a bunny and a tree, tucked safely into the sasquatch’s arms. Awwwww!

the real sasquatchBelieve it or not, this isn’t the first sasquatch activity I’ve posted on this blog. Here’s another project for older kids that also involves a slightly different sort of search!