Animal Crafts

Patterned Polar Bear Art Project

This is a dreamy way to create a beautiful Arctic sunset or Northern lights backdrop for your winter scenes.

Materials:

Polar Bear Template
Oil Pastels
Sharp Object

Ice Bear: The Arctic World of Polar Bears

This simple yet evocative book explores the polar bear s Arctic home and life cycle. Playful cubs, hungry boars, and intimidating sows Kazlowski’s photographs capture this fascinating species in all its beautiful and fearsome glory. More than 100 full-color images reveal the polar bear s world, as well as the entire Arctic landscape: rugged ice floes, magical aurora borealis, walruses, seals, Arctic foxes and rabbits, beluga whales, and a variety of birds including the snowy owl. Kazlowski also captures the Inuit people and their culture in which the polar bear plays a significant part.

Step 1

Print your polar bear template as a guide. The template includes grey lines separating each shape.

Step 2

Choose cool colors (blues, greens, purples) to color in the shapes of your polar bear.

Step 3

You want a good variety of colors and try not to have the same colors touching eachother.

Step 4

Choose warm colors (reds, oranges, and yellows) and start filling in the shapes of the background.

Step 5

Color in every shape leaving no white space. Make sure you pressed hard enough with your oil pastels to ge a thick layer of color on your paper.

Step 6

You can stop here and frame on black construction paper if you like

Step 7

Or you might want to add in some patterns. Oil pastel can be scratched away to reveal a lighter hue of the same color. This is a great way to add texture and patterns to your polar bear.

Step 8

You can even add in things you might see in an Arctic landscape; iceburgs, winter trees, a full moon, inukshuk, etc....

Polar Bear Art Projects

December 28, 2015 By Valerie Mcclintick Leave a Comment

If you’ve been following us on Instagram, you’ve already gotten a glimpse of these new art projects while they were in the works, but today I’ve finished the photo tutorials to show you how to make your own with your children. These polar bear art projects are stunning and aren’t as difficult as they look. I would recommend using these with late elementry or early middle school aged children…..but really you can adapt these for children of all ages and abilities.

Polar Bear Landscape Art Project

Based off the beautiful arctic landscape scenes by Ted Harrison, this project is fun for children of all ages and definitely adds a color pop to your classroom!

Polar Bear Paw Print Art Project

This stunning Arctic craft uses a bear paw print template. Children use watercolor, ink and oil pastel to create a beautiful winter scene of a polar bear and her cub.

A harbor seal is depicted across the pads of the polar bears feet, foreshadowing the end of this Winter hunt.

Find more Arctic Art Projects Here

Landform Diorama Craft

Learning about landforms can be lots of fun! Students just need to walk outside to see the beauty of God’s creation. Unique designs and features can be found in the variety of different plants, animals, and yes, even landforms! If you have any special landmarks or attractions nearby, this is a great opportunity to get out and about to explore for a homeschool field trip!

Encourage children to Look for mountains, rivers, lakes, ponds, hills, plains, and so much more! When you return, have children make a landform diorama to expand Many children are visual learners and the use of models is a great way to introduce important information. Use this fun model of the earths layers to learn all about the different components of our wonderful world!

Books About Landforms for Kids

DIY Landform Diorama for Kids

Materials:

Empty Cardboard Box
Green Construction Paper
Play Dough, Sandpaper, Paint, Moss
Labels w/Marker

Step 1:

Before you can make a landform diorama, you’ll need to find a base. You can use the lid of a cardboard box, a Styrofoam packing insert, or really anything that is wide and shallow. This is something you don’t need to keep for anything else as we’ll be gluing thing down inside.

Step 2:

Glue a piece of green construction paper to the bottom of your container. This will serve as land areas we can build on! Grab some brown play dough and make a large mountain for the corner of your diorama. Use your thumb to press a small indentation on the side of the mountain. Using white paint to represent snow, paint the top of the mountain so that is it “snow-capped.”

Step 3:

Using blue paint, paint inside the groove on the mountain (representing the snow melting and a traveling stream) and near the base of the mountain. This is a great visual for students to understand how in the summer snow melts and water travels from the top of the mountain down to the valley.

Step 4:

Continue the path of water to the upper corner of the container. This will be our river and our ocean later.

Step 5:

Add a few more landforms around your diorama. Place a small hill over near the mountain. Add a land island in the middle of your water. Use moss to represent forests. Paint a separate body of water that can represent a lake or pond.

Step 6:

Cut a small wedge of sandpaper to fit the remaining corner of the container. This can represent a dessert in our landform diorama.

Step 7:

Use a label maker or small label stickers to add titles to each of your landforms. If you are using this project for a science fair, you can number each title to correspond with your science display board or written report.

Step 8:

If you have small plastic animals available, these would be a great way to expand your project to showcase animal habitats! Just don’t place your polar bear in the desert!

Tiger Eyes Oil Pastel Tutorial

July 9, 2013 By Valerie Mcclintick 3 Comments

We are getting tons of use from our Crayola Oil Pastels.
I’ve purchased other pastel kits in the past, but I love the amount of crayon you get with this set. They are so much thicker and have lasted us much longer.

Plus they are nice for little hands.

Amazon currently has them for $3.88 and free shipping as an add on for Prime
I highly recommend them!
They are wonderful quality, and produce stunning results:

I know right?!

This is our latest project, Tiger Eyes!

I’ve posted the two part photo tutorial

Drawing your Tiger Eyes
Using Oil Pastel on Tiger Eyes

I’m guessing that this would be perfect for 6th and 7th graders,
or very enthusiastic elementary students.

The tiger is the national animal of India, and would also tie ie with our previous oil pastel tutorial of India’s national bird, the peacock.

Can you guess what country we’ll be studying this coming year?

Peacock Oil Pastel Tutorial

July 8, 2013 By Valerie Mcclintick 1 Comment

I have a dear sweet little girl who thinks she can’t draw. We sit at the table and I instruct her, drawing a line on my paper, then she draws a line on her paper.

It’s not perfect. I can’t do it. It doesn’t look like yours SEE…

And I tell her, Sweet Girl, The world isn’t perfect. There are bumps and squiggles and dents and dings, but that is what we want to see. We want to see lopsidedness, and misshapen, off-center and unsymmetrical

Our drawing can reflect reality rather then perfection.

So she kept pushing herself, I instructed and she drew her best.
There were moments of frusteration, but as her drawing came together she began to see how beautiful ~~her drawing~~ she really was!

Confidence was built this week.

She is begging for another picuture, a tiger she says would be amazing with it’s red and orange……or a sheep with it’s white fluffy body….

And I’m thinking of all the goals we met over the school year, our Summer months spending time together, just might be more fruitful.

If you want to try out this little peacock,
I’ve posted the full tutorial on our website.

There is even a printable peacock for a template guide,
or for your TOT’s to color in while you instruct your older kiddos.

I actually printed the peacock for my oldest boy, who struggles with motor control and it would have made the lesson excruciatingly painful for him. He was full of joy when coloring it in with pastels and it was still a mini lesson for him :)

Making a Classroom Quilt: Printables!

April 21, 2013 By Valerie Mcclintick Leave a Comment

Yup, just for you!

We’ve got ABC’s, 123’s, and everything in between!

You can print it all FREE!

Wondering how to use the printables?

It couldn’t be eaiser!

Print up a set of Classroom Quilt Printables. You can use regular paper, if children are coloring with markers or watercoloring you might use cardstock instead.

NOTE: Some of our Classroom Quilt printables even come with optional handwriting practice on the side. You can instruct children to cut this part off first, write their name on it and turn it in.

Have each child color in their own quilt square. Have them write their names on the back.

Have each child cut out their own quilt square. There are easy cut dotted lines around the square.

Show children how to slide their square into the correct pocket.

This is the Quilt Pocket Chart we use, however any bulletin board or blank wall space works too!

Stand back and enjoy your classroom quilt!
These look amazing when they are filled up with children’s artwork!

Like our Classroom Quilt Pocket Chart?
Here’s where we got it!

Ready to make your own?

Click Here for ALL of our Classroom Quilt Printables

ABC Quilt

123 Quilt

Alphabet Animals Quilt

Butterfly Quilt

Christmas Quilt

Community Helpers Quilt

Earth Day

Easter Quilt

Farm Animal Quilt

Seasons Quilt

Want to suggest a theme?

Have an idea for using these in the classroom?

Leave us a comment below!

Stained Glass Coloring Pages

March 25, 2013 By Valerie Mcclintick Leave a Comment

This week I picked up a set of Stained Glass Coloring Pages from the bookstore.

Everyday last week, after the children finished their schoolwork I let them choose a few stained glass coloring pages.

They were a HUGE hit.

Addictive even.

They have since filled up the classroom window with their creations.

This was such a great project for them,
(and me)

They stayed busy for HOURS.
All of them….even the baby and the tot loved coloring them.
Grandma even got in on the action.

It was perfect for the rainy days we’ve had this week.

Gotta love it!

There are so many different sets of Stained Glass Coloring Pages,
you can bet that we’ll be picking them up for birthdays and Christmas presents!

A Post about Poop. (Animal Poop)

June 20, 2012 By Valerie Mcclintick 6 Comments

So recently my oldest boy has become fascinated with poop.

Our mornings are spent hiking around the house looking for signs of the previous nights visitors.

We take photos and document what we find.

It’s like CSI for animal poop.

Sometimes we recognize right away what we’re dealing with.
But most times we take photos, load them up to the CPU and
spend our afternoons comparing photos of animal scat.

We even picked up this handy book at a recent homeschool curriculum sale.

We’re starting to think we’re experts.

However. We’ve found a couple that have stumped us.
(read: we disagree upon)

And since everyone was so helpful in identifying
the crazy bug we found last month we are reaching out for some scat identification help.

So can you help?

Background information: We live in a forested area in Southern Oregon.
Lots and lots of forest, lots of deer and a few turkey. We don’t have cats or dogs (yet) but it’s possible we had stray visitors from neighbors down the way.

Scat #1
Found in our yard this morning.
Some whitish type fur or something too.
Pictured slightly smaller then real life.
(guess: I’m pretty sure this is a stray cat, but the boy says coyote.)

Scat #2
Found in more woodsy area near our house.
Shown at about half size.
Absolutely NO SMELL.
Please don’t ask how I know this
(guess: large dog? smushy deer? usually we see the pile of pellets….hmmmm.)

Scat #3
Found practically on our back porch railing. Close to actual size.
(guess: bird family?)

So there you have it folks.

A post about poop.

What do you think?

Starting Nature Journals

July 12, 2011 By Valerie Mcclintick 12 Comments

Do your children have a nature journal?

Do you?

I’ll admit that I’ve tried them.

But first let me just tell you a little story….

So sit back……grab your coffee,
and enjoy my failure for a moment.

A few years ago when I first decided to homeschool,
I was introduced to the idea of Nature Journals.
There were so many amazing examples online of what
could be included, so many beautiful watercolors paintings
amid pressed flowers and texture rubbings of important things.

It was overwhelming.
But I like a good challenge

I decided that I would create (see the problem here)
lasting memories of a happy, outdoorsy childhood, spent
among wildflowers, babbling creeks, white tail deer that stood
still for hours.

Ha.

So I set out with my then 2 children
I packed up our watercolor pencils, sketchbooks,
apple juice boxes and peanut butter crackers.

I drove for a half hour, to a scenic viewpoint,
one I was sure would inspire my children to create magic.
We hiked for 20 minutes and finally sat down in the Summer
heat to begin our journaling.

So, I’m sure you can imagine,
(or at least infer by the tone of this post)
How it all went down.

And it went Down. Hill. Fast.

Think sticky juice box fingers mixed with expensive sketchbooks
Colored pencils with ever breaking tips. Not a sharpener in sight.
Peanut butter cracker crumbs.
And only ONE green pencil, in a field of green trees and flowers.
682 feet above sea level, Snickering onlookers, and two children coming down
from an Apple Juice high.
(Ooooh I could have just….)

MY DREAMS of inspiring, keepsake worthy nature journals
was shot.

I loaded the children back up in the car.
And drove home.
Defeated.

I haven’t attempted Nature Journals since.

Until Now.

WHY?

Because I had the privilege of hearing This Funny Lady,
speak at a Homeschool Conference last month.

And I was again inspired to try Nature Journaling.

However.

And this is a big However.

HOW – EV – ER
(are you catching my tone here?)

This time I’m going in with little to NO EXPECTATIONS.
This time I understand that I can’t expect a child to draw a bird
while it’s flitting around everywhere.
That it’s OKAY to just sit back and enjoy the creature, and then LATER
*gasp*
look up images and facts about the animal.

So, as you check out the following photos,
DO NOT BE DECIEVED.
There was no magic peaceful moment as we drew them.
It was actually an instructional time for us, sitting around the table
and working hard at where to put little eyes, and beaks, and toes.

But we do spend peaceful mornings together watching these little birds
fly around our yard. We talk about what kind of birds they are, and each time they visit we look for new things to learn about them.

And then later we looked up images and poetry online,
and added them to our nature journals.

And here’s how that all translates:

Didn’t they turn out cute?
Now those are keepsakes!

I was so ~~jealous~~ inspired with how easy things went
that I went out and got myself a sketchbook.

Oh. And colored pencils too.
The good ones.
I just can’t resist an opportunity for new pencils.

And you know what?
I forgot how therapeutic drawing was.

And I love that I can use my journal to document the “real life”
that causes us to add something to our journals in the first place.

I’m feeling pretty good about nature journals,
And this time around
I think we’re off to a great start!

Soapstone Sculpture

September 23, 2010 By Valerie Mcclintick 2 Comments

Yesterday for art we enchanced our plain white clay with an ancient Inuit technique:

*snicker

Black Pepper really did add some texture to our clay, and reminded me of the appearance of soapstone:

(I would have put more in, but eyes were starting to water)

We paired this craft with the book Missuk’s Snow Geese, which is about a little girl who wants to learn from her father, how to carve into soapstone.

My kiddos were a bit to young to do the traditional carving technique (we’ll be picking up bars of soap for this later in the week!) so we just molded our clay into shapes:

This was Bubba’s “Shark”….made me giggle how much it looks like a whale, but if he say’s it’s a shark….it’s a shark!

Arctic Watercolor

September 16, 2010 By Valerie Mcclintick Leave a Comment

We will be lapbooking all of our fun Arctic learning, so this week the kids made some beautiful watercolor artwork, inspired by the wonderful illustrations in this book:

“My Arctic 1,2,3”

We loved this book because a new animal is introduced for each page, and below the pictures children can see how the animals names are written in traditional Inukitut. At the back of the book there is a section where the author discusses his childhood encounters with each animal, while growing up in the Arctic. Bubba especially loved this part of the book, hearing about a young boy who had so many fantastic adventures.

My kiddos picked their favorite animal of the group and used a combination of watercolor, colored pencils, and pastels to complete their drawings.

We cut down the edges of the paintings, and glued them to our lapbooks for cover art. I then helped the children write the name of the animal in Inukitut next to their paintings:

If you can’t tell, Sissy(7) did “Killer Whales”, and Bubba(4) did “Arctic Char” (which are fish)

I think they turned out beautiful and they are super excited to fill them up with everything they are learning!

Here is a link to a tutorial with discussion questions for using this craft in your classroom.

Stay tuned for more Arctic Fun!

Puffy Polar Bear

September 14, 2010 By Valerie Mcclintick 7 Comments

We’re starting up our Homechool year learning about the Inuit tribes of North America!

My kiddos have been so excited to learn about the Eskimos, and all the amazing creatures of the arctic.

We’re using Evan-Moor History Pockets as a basic guide for our studies on Native Americans

As well as Draw, Write, Now Book 4 (Animals of the Arctic)

And of course a slew of library books (Click Here for our picks)

We’ve already kicked off our year of learning so we’ve got some great projects to share with you!

Starting off with these fun Puffy Polar Bears:

We’ve even included a recipe for making your own Puffy Paint, and Texture Paint here!!

Very Simple, but quite beautiful results!

Stay tuned for more Arctic Fun!!!

(Psst….You did see our adorable Eskimo File Folder Game didn’t you?)