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.
- 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.
- Start by making your stamps. Stick round foam stickers on your caps. Hard eh?
- Next cut out a simple owl shape from your paper.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Next add the googly eyes and nose. She loved filling the caps with glue for the googly eyes.
- 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.
Ingrid Bryant says
We made these today with 2-6 year olds. We used their fingerprints on the stamp pads instead! We didn’t have the caps for eyes so we used yellow circles made from construction paper outlined with a black marker and then put the large googly eyes on the yellow circles. They turned out so cute!!! Thanks for the idea! Great for all ages! The kids esp loved using their own fingerprints. The mom will love them too!
Kathy says
Just saw your owl on pinterest today and can’t wait to do these for valentines day. I plan on doing a bulletin board with the caption “whoooo do you love?” Then have my kiddos tell about who they love and why. Then on my class door, I love you, and tell why I love each of them. Thanks for notion. Ps I will use heart stamps on the body. Thanks again.
Dee says
Made this simple craft with my daycare kids. We used different coloured bingo dabbers instead of stamps and turned out super cute.