Yesterday I asked my son to choose one of the animals we saw at the zoo last week and I’d think up an activity. He chose a lion and this is what we made. Now I can’t post this without saying that I did my fair share of this lion too. If I could do it all over again I’d have the kids paint the body and only collage the mane or make it a way smaller project because they lost major steam about half way through. We took a break I slipped back in the playroom filled in some of the empty spots and then the challenge was just right and they completed it on a high note and our playroom now has a super cool lion on the wall.

1. Gather your materials, you will need some craft paper, glue, construction paper ( we used paper from out scrap box ) , a pencil, crayons, markers, googly eyes and scissors.
2. Start by drawing a lion on your craft paper. I used the lion from Eric Carle’s 1, 2,3 to the Zoo as my inspiration.
3. Next have the kids color the paper to make fur- this was my son’s idea.
4. Next cut some of the paper in long strips for the mane. The big adult scissors are a treat for a kid who isn’t super fond of cutting but needs to work on it … funny how something so simple can make all the difference!
5. Cut or rip the rest into pieces.
6. Add glue.
7. Add the paper.
8. My son worked hard on the mane. Then we took a break.
9. When we got back he added glue for the face pieces ( I cut them out when they were collaging) .
10. Added the googly eyes .
11. Let dry then cut out and display!

Books For The Zoo

Check out some books about the zoo here.