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?
We read William’s Winter Nap, written by Linda Ashman, and illustrated by Chuck Groenink (Disney Hyperion, 2017). It’s a cold winter night, and William is getting ready for bedtime. He’s constantly interrupted, however, by woodland creatures who all want to climb in bed for a snooze too! William is cheerfully accommodating – until an enormous bear arrives at the door. Is there room for one more? Of course!
You’ll need:
- 1 large box (ours was 4.5” X 4.5” x 9” box – a large tissue box works too)
- 6 toilet paper tubes
- 1 packing tape core
- Construction paper
- Scissors and tape for construction
- Markers for decorating
We’ll begin with the bed! We cut the lid off a brown craft box and used it to create the bed’s head board and foot board. The pillow is a toilet paper tube, and the blanket is a piece of white construction paper. Decorate everything with markers. We also added foil star stickers, and added 4 pom-pom feet to the bed, but these items are optional.
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 eye stickers and dot stickers.
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!
Next, crumble up a swath of brown packing paper (ours was 25″ x 36″). The more wrinkly it is, the more it will look like bark! Wrap the paper around the sides of the box, anchoring it tape or hot glue. Hot glue the paper to the base as well. One thing to note – you want the brown paper to extend about 14″ – 16″ above the top of the box. This will give you nice, fat branches on your tree.
Cut sections into the paper, then twist the sections tightly to create branches. Notice in the photo below that the branch sections end 4-5″ above the top of the box. If you cut them too close to the top of the box, your branches will droop.
Add some green construction paper leaves, and your tree is done! We used the box lid to create shelves for the library, tucked a couple felt blankets in place, added a patterned paper rug, and made a library sign. Here’s a shot of our library’s interior.
We wanted the library books to sit solidly on the shelves, so we hot glued mini craft stick spines to 2.75″ x 4″ pieces of poster board, then hot glued a couple 2.25″ x 3.25″ pages on top. It worked great!
It takes a little time to make the books, and we really wanted to fill the shelves, so we prepped 6 books per kid in advance (132 books total!). Behold the fruits of our labors…
Finally, your library readers! We fashioned ours after the characters in the book, using 2 toilet paper tubes and construction paper. We couldn’t help making a red knit felt cap for the girl, too.
Our library tree has red lanterns so those were the final touch to our project. We recycled them from this 
Sneakers, boots, bunny slippers, and galoshes. When you have 100 legs, you’re going to need a LOT of shoes. Good thing we have just the shoe store for you and your centipede marionette!
Katie came up with fantastic, easy method for stringing the marionette. Tie a 4 ft string to the end of a wooden dowel. Thread the string through the first tube, then loop it up and around the wooden dowel. Repeat this threading and looping through the second and third tubes, then tie the end of the string around the back end of the wooden dowel. Wrap the ends of the dowel in masking tape so the string doesn’t slide off. You can see the string loops in the photo below:
Last but not least, your centipede’s face. You don’t want to put the face on BEFORE you thread the marionette string, because the pom-pom will be blocking the end of the tube! the face is a jumbo pom-pom (which we hot glued in place), eye stickers, a self-adhesive foam smile, and twisteez wire antennae.
The kids walked over with their centipedes, and I slid the shoe templates through the front door of the shop.
The shoes were then colored, cut, and taped the centipede’s legs. Admittedly, this marionette can be a little floppy while it’s getting its shoes attached. Which brings me to this clever technique a parent came up with:
Tape the dowel to the table, and you are free to attach the shoes on a dangling marionette with minimal flopping. ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!