Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Reptiles: Book and Bookmark Craft


My son’s teacher is sending home books that are long enough for him to read sections of each night (yahoo!). Bookmarks are a must now. Funny thing, though, they keep disappearing!

I came up with a fun way to learn about reptiles and make some scaly long-tongued bookmarks too. To learn about cold-blooded creatures, we read Miles and Miles of Reptiles by Tish Rabe. Have I ever mentioned how much I love the books in The Cat in the Hat Learning Library? They combine information about non-fiction topics with lively cartoon-like characters and rhyming text (I have a weakness for books that rhyme). My son LOVES these and I do too.



After we finished reading, I gave him some lizard and snake templates I made and cut apart. 
Download this 1-page PDF here.
Then I cut apart a shower poof and placed a piece of 7 ¼-inch wide cardboard inside the netting tube I cut. My son picked the colors of acrylic paint to use on each snake.


We placed the paper under the netting and over the cardboard. I taught my son to stencil, pouncing the brush until it was mostly dry and then pouncing again over netting. The netting created the perfect “stencil” to make scaly snake skin! Next, my son painted his lizards – one with spots, the other with stripes.


I used a hairdryer to speed up the dry time. Once dry, he added eyes with a black crayola marker. After I’d cut them out, we took them to the store to be laminated.


Once laminated, I cut around each bookmark, used a punch to add a hole in the mouth of each animal and my son threaded pink or red ribbon through for a tongue.

Of course, I added his name to the backs of each in the hope that his new super cool cold-blooded long-tongued bookmarks never slither away.


15 comments:

  1. What adorable little book marks! And love your "painting technique"! Fabulous!

    Thank you for linking to Kids Get Crafty.

    Maggy

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  2. Very cool! I love how you made these and will definitely have to keep this idea in mind.

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  3. Cool bookmarks!!! Visiting from TGIF

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  4. Very cool blog. Stopped in from TGIF. I've searched around and found some fun additions for my boys' astronomy "class" (we're going slowly and taking the year to do it). Plus a few other ideas. Excellent!

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  5. I love the your bookmarks! The snakes tongues are so cool!

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  6. These are super cute bookmarks! Love the tongues!! Thanks for linking up to TGIF! Merry Christmas,
    Beth =-)

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  7. Oh my, these are the coolest bookmarks I have ever seen!! And that book just so happens to be a favorite at our house too! I love the Cat and the Hat Learning Library too!

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  8. Oh my goodness ADORABLE!!!! Pinning!

    Thanks for sharing at Thrifty Thursday! I hope you and your family has a WONDERFUL holiday season!

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  9. Those are bookmarks any little boy or reptile loving girl would love to make and have!!

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  10. So smart! I love the lizard tongues. Thanks for sharing at Etcetorize~

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  11. Cool idea! I love these!!! Thanks so much for linking up to Make Yourself Monday!

    Jamie
    For Love of Cupcakes

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  12. What a fun idea! I LOVE stuff that kids can help make that they can use too. My theory is they take better care of it...eh, maybe not.:) Good luck with the keeping track of them.:)

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  13. Love it! I have boys, so we'll definitely try this when we study reptiles!

    Brittney
    www.moms-heart.blogspot.com

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  14. What a fun idea! I can't wait to try it with my little one! Thanks for linking to our Afterschool Express!

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  15. We made crocodiles this past week using this painting technique. It was so much fun! I linked back to this post to show where we found the fun idea.

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