It’s a merry chase! Use your motor skills to navigate a yellow pom-pom hen around the barnyard. But beware the red pom-pom fox, who’s also on a roll!
We read Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins (Aladdin, 1971 read here by Miss Gray Educates). Rosie the Hen decided to take a little stroll around the farm, not realizing that she’s being followed by a hungry fox. Fortunately for Rosie, the Fox’s luck is horrible. He runs into misfortune after misfortune in pursuit of his chicken lunch. Happily, Rosie makes it back to her coop, none the wiser. The wordless sight gags on each page had our kids chuckling!
This book also gets a gold star rating from Katie. It was her son’s FAVORITE as a kid!
You’ll need:
- 1 large box top (like a copy paper box lid)
- 1 paper towel tube
- 1 small box
- 1 paper cup
- Construction paper
- 2 large pom-poms
- Scissors, glue, and tape for construction
- Markers for decorating
As you can see in the above photo, we used a copy paper box lid as the base of our barnyard. Then we glued a number of elements in place. The bee hive was a paper cup with an arched door. The haystack was a construction paper tunnel. The ramp was a paper towel tube, cut in half length-wise and elevated with a snippet of the remaining tube. The hen house was a small box with the lid positioned as a ramp, also elevated with a snippet of paper towel tube. We added a pond, fabric flowers, and tissue paper shrubs as well.
With all the obstacles complete, drop two jumbo pom-poms into the box lid. We thought about decorating these like a fox and hen, but they rolled much easier as simple poms.
With your poms in place, commence the chase! Tip and jiggle the box lid to make the fox and hen race around the barnyard, ducking into buildings and rolling up ramps.
You can’t fly with one wing. But if you join up with another one-winged friend, well…the sky’s the limit! This project also double as a cute motor skills hook and balance game.
The other two game pieces are a lily pad and a flower. The lily pad is made out of construction paper, and the flower is a cupcake liner I found in the discount Easter section of Target. The flower is a small box hot glued to the top of a 6″ piece of paper towel tube. We added some green paper crinkle to the inside as well.
The final step is to rig up a fishing pole. We used a wooden dowel, yarn, and an unfolded paperclip fishing hook. To play the game, place Horsefly and Honeybee on the lily pad. Then hook them with the fishing pole and fly them to the safety of the flower.
Some story times, kids will grab the project’s supplies and create something entirely impromptu. So may I present…a Venus Fly Trap?
Tired and ready to jump into bed? You might have some competition. Can you toss the bear, chipmunk, groundhog, raccoon, porcupine, AND yourself safely into the bed?
The bed’s occupants are toilet paper tubes (the chipmunk is a 2″ snippet of tube). The bear, however, is a packing tape core. We used construction paper and markers to decorate them, as well as 
To play the game, simply set the bed up, move back a few paces, and let the tubes fly! The big bear is especially fun to toss, as he/she is prone to sending the other tubes bouncing out of the bed and into the air!