FOREST ANIMALS Activities

An Owl in a Tree

You'll Need:
Strip of cardboard
one piece of black construction paper
owl template
craft feathers
glue or tape


-- Print out owl template. Let your child color the owl template with paints, crayons, or pens. Cut out the shapes. (Or, you can use this owl template, printed out in color, and skip the coloring step -- just move to gluing/assembly.)

-- Cut a circle from the black construction paper, just a bit bigger than the owl (so it'll look like she's sitting in a hole in a tree).

-- Glue (or have child glue) the circle onto the cardboard, and the owl shapes onto the circle. Decorate with feathers if you've got 'em. Cute little owl in a tree!


Forest Mural

Forest Animal Coloring Pages (which I cut out and glued onto black paper to make our mural):

Finch coloring page

Pine tree coloring page

Salamander coloring page

Owl coloring page

Sparrow coloring page

Badger coloring page

Quail family coloring page

Hedgehog coloring page

Chipmunk coloring page

Bear cub coloring page

Bear coloring page

Cartoon bear with daffodil coloring page

Upside-down opossum coloring page

Porcupine coloring page

Raccoon in a log coloring page

Howling wolf coloring page

Snake coloring page

Skunk coloring page

Mouse coloring page

What Lives in a Hollow Log?

It's a little alarming how fast our family (and by "family," I mean mommy) goes through hot chocolate. The up side is that we have lots of canisters for art projects. Just doing my duty...

This project was spur-of-the-moment, and fun. Nora and I painted the canister brown (she loves to paint "things-other-than-paper" -- more interesting, somehow) and then went online together and looked for pictures of animals that might live in a hollow log. It was interesting how fast she caught on and didn't say things like "elephants" or "whales." :) It was intuitive somehow. What might it be like inside a log? Dry, cool, damp, smelly? How big would a log be, and what animals might hide there? Is there anything to eat in the log? Hamburgers? (ha, ha)

Nora taped some animals and plants inside the log (spiders, roly-polies, etc.) and some outside (snake, squirrel, raccoon [on opposite side], frog, millipede, roly-poly, mushrooms, moss, etc.). She had fun playing with the log and putting her plastic animal figurines in it.

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Other ideas:

-- Leaf Walk
Stroll the neighborhood with your child, gathering leaves, pine branches, seeds, flowers. Glue onto paper and talk about what you're found.

-- Leaf rubbings

-- Make a "bear cave" (like a fort) out of pillows, blankets, etc. and hide or hibernate in it.

-- Movies: Brother Bear, Bambi, Pocahontas (depending on child's age)

-- Watch/read "Trees Come in Different Shapes" online with your child (a story you read aloud as you click through the images). There's another story in the series worth watching, too: "Trees Are Terrific."

-- "Letter T is for Tree" coloring page