Hand Print Hen !

We love The Big Red Barn, it calms me to read it before my son’s nap or bedtime and the more I read it the more I love it. So I wanted to do some sort of farm animal craft to go along with it. This is what we came up with. I love crafts that use personal touches like pictures and hand prints, and so do kids. They enjoy seeing how their hand prints turn into feathers and the crown on this chicken.

1. Gather your materials. You will need some cardboard or heavy paper, some markers, 2 sheets white paper, red and orange construction paper, one googly eye, scissors and glue.
2. Start by drawing the outline of a chicken .
3. Trace your child’s hand on the orange paper- just once, one time is hard enough!
4. Have your child color  the outline  however they please. 
5. While they color the chicken layer the white and red paper under the hand tracing .
6. Cut out. You should have one red, 1-2 orange and 4 white.
7. Hand your child the glue and explain that the white and orange hand prints are the chicken’s feathers. Add the glue.
8. Add the “feathers”
9. While they do that cut a beak and some legs and feet out from the extra orange paper.
10. Add your eye
11. Add your beak
12. Add the glue for the crown.
13. Add the red hand print for the crown.
14. Add your legs and let dry.

Books

“Big Red Barn” by Margaret Wise Brown is the inspiration for this craft, and an increasingly one of my very favorite books. The story is simple readers see a day in the life of a big red barn and all the animals inside. Each animal is introduced in the seamless text that reads like a melodic poem. It’s  calm , soothing and Felicia Bond’s illustrations are perfect, I love how the sky subtly changes as the night beckons.  A wonderful book for anytime, but especially poignant before bed.

“One Little Chicken : A Counting Book” by David Elliot was a great library find. You count chickens as they dance all different styles, my favorite being the chickens who dance the hula ! The rhyming text is really fun and the pictures will make you giggle, I mean there are chickens in leotards doing ballet! Totally tickled my funny bone. The best part though is that it gets the reader involved after counting to ten, the chickens turn the tables stare at the reader and implore them to dance!  One of my new favorite counting books.

“Silly Chicken” by Ruskhsana Khan  is an interesting book about so much more than a chicken.  It’s a tale of jealousy and love, and how neither are silly at all.  In the story a little girl is jealous of her mother’s attachment to a chicken but things shift when it disappears.  I think this book can open up dialogue between parents and kids about saying things you don’t mean , and how they would feel if what they said really did come true. My son read the book with me but the depth of the book was too complex for him. He still enjoyed the surprise ending and book overall either way.