Owls are trendy right now for sure but even more important in our house is that my daughter’s preschool class is the owls class. We have owl hair bows, owl hats and it was no surprise when I asked he if she wanted to make an animal craft she quickly said ” Yes , let’s make owl!” So we did. Using your child’s interests for crafts or learning time deepens their experience and makes it more fun.

1. Gather your materials. We stamped our owl with homemade stamps made from milk jug caps and foam stickers ( see how below) but you could use any stamp. You will also need white paper, scissors, a stamp pad , glue , googly eyes and some construction paper for a simple nose, backing and branch.
2. Start by making your stamps. Stick round foam stickers on your caps. Hard eh?
3. Next cut out a simple owl shape from your paper.
4. Time to stamp! I put a piece of black construction paper under my daughter as a place mat of sorts. Even washable stamp pads in my experience aren’t as washable as washable markers.
5. Peel the stickers off the homemade stamps and glue the caps on the owl for eyes.  This wasn’t planned- my daughter peeled the stamps off and I decided to use them as part of the owl’s eyes.
6. Next add glue for the eyes. I love using these simple steps to talk about body parts with my toddler. ” Where are the owl’s eyes? How many eyes do owls have?” with older kids take the opportunity to talk about how owls have great eyesight and how they hunt at night. glue the caps on. 
7. Next add the googly eyes and nose. She loved filling the caps with glue for the googly eyes.
8. Let dry and glue onto a backing sheet. Add a simple branch if desired.

My Favorite Owl Book For Toddlers

Owl Babies by Martin Waddell is perfectly written for toddlers who are eager to “do it myself” but still need a loving parent safely within view.  Three baby owls wake to find their mom away and as time passes the three all get more anxious in their own ways. My daughter loves this book and completely related to poor little Bill who repeats ” I want my mommy!” over and over.  At night she is very much like little Bill, but during the day she is braver like the other two owls Sarah and Percy. No matter what level of separation anxiety your child may have at times they will relate to one or all of the little owls. Of course the story ends with mama coming back and reassuring her little owl babies that she always will.