If you follow me on Twitter you may have seen my tweet on Sunday that we found a snake in our backyard.  My husband was mowing and saw it. As soon as my son woke from nap, all three of us went searching, and found it again.  I love finding wild life in my backyard ( well when it’s small and non venomous anyway), it makes learning about a specific animal so much more fun . We immediately went online to find the exact species, what it ate and how big it would get. Sadly after nap yesterday my son wasn’t as into making his own snake as I guessed he’d be ( or at all), although he liked the snake book we read . Oh well I can’t win them all!

1. Gather your materials. You will need 2 toilet paper rolls, or a paper towel roll cut in two, some sticky back foam, some jingle bells, googly eyes ,glue,  scissors , a knee high or leg of panty hose , and a pipe cleaner.
2. Start by having your child cut the sticky back foam into shapes.  We are using up scraps so they were already in smaller pieces, if you have large sheets you may want to make it easier for your child by cutting them into strips that are easier to handle.
3. Put the rolls inside the panty hose, along with the jingle bells.
4. Tie the end.
5. Peel off the backing and add the shapes. You can even fit in a patterning lesson if you want !
6. Add the tongue . I threaded the pipe cleaner through then twisted it into the right length with a v on the end.
7. Add glue for the eyes.
8. Add eyes. Let dry.

Books

The Snake Is Totally Tail by Judi Barrett is a great book for teaching about animals. It doesn’t go into great depth for each animal instead if focuses on the one most obvious attribute of them all. What I love is that for toddlers they are able to see that easily in the pictures as you read the story. It seems simple and sorta average at first but sit down with a child, read it and it’s simple genius is blatantly apparent!

The Greedy Python by Richard Buckley and  Eric Carle is a fun fable about a snake that is so greedy he eats all the animals in the jungle, even ones much larger than him like an elephant! My son thinks this book is hilarious and loves that the animals work together to escape their fate.  The story gets even sillier when the greedy snake ends up eating his own tail!

Snake (Watch it Grow)by Barrie Watts is a wonderful non fiction choice to learn a little more about snakes.  The book covers a snakes life from egg right through the life cycle to laying eggs. What I liked about this book was that each page offers the reader main points as well as more in depth text, which makes it easy to adjust to a wide range of ages. For toddlers or young preschoolers you can simply read the page titles and discuss the pictures, where older or more interested kids can sit for the full text. We enjoyed this book a lot.

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