Hello Gardeners!
We don't know about you, but all of us on the Gardening Team have been making an effort to read more while staying at home. Dedicating 30 minutes to one hour to reading every day is a great way to help our kids (and ourselves) minds stay sharp! If that time frame seems a little too ambitious, pick an amount of time that seems doable for your family and grow from there!
Today we have a craft to help encourage more reading time - Mr. Fox Bookmarks! This particular craft is a bit more challenging, as there are a lot of small cuts to be made - you may want to do this with your older gardeners OR precut everything for the younger ones.
Here's what you will need:
Construction paper (White, Black, Orange)
Scissors
Glue
Googly eyes (optional)
First, cut a thin strip of your orange paper and a slightly thinner strip of your white paper. Cut the white strip down by about 1/3 and round the corners.
Next, cut off the top of your orange strip so you have a rectangle that outlines the white piece and a square piece. Cut off the bottom corners of your square so you have pentagon-like shape. Using your scissors, shape the pentagon shape into the fox head - soften the bottom edges and outline the ears at the top (remember, it doesn't need to be perfect!).
Then, using a small piece of your white paper, outline the shape of your fox head with a pencil and cut out the shape. Then cut out a triangular shape to form the cheeks of the fox.
Take a minute to glue everything down! Roughly center your white rectangle on your orange rectangle and glue the white cheeks to your orange head.
Using a small rectangle of orange, cut out the little legs - remember to leave enough room at the bottom to glue! Glue them right above the top of the white rectangle.
Then, glue the fox head on top of where you glued the leg piece. Using scissors, trim the orange rectangle to create the shoulders. Last but not least, cut out a nose and eyes (or use googly eyes) and glue in place. Let it dry fully and there you have it!
We love this craft because it . . .
. . . is a great focus activity. All of the small cuts, placement, and instructions require focused attention!
. . . is a challenging fine motor skills task. There are so many little things to cut out and glue. If you are looking to challenge your gardener, this one's for you!
. . . creates excitement about reading! Having a fun bookmark may engage a young gardener to snuggle up to a good book!