Luke and I spent some time this afternoon re-creating a scene from the children’s book Acorns Everywhere by Kevin Sherry.
It’s a fun story about a squirrel who hurriedly hides his acorns in the ground because winter is coming. When he is finished hiding them all, his tummy rumbles from hunger and he suddenly realizes he can’t remember where he hid all the acorns. There aren’t many words in the story so it’s definitely more toddler/preschool level. The illustrations really tell the story well though, so not much need for more words.
We’ve also read the story Nuts to You by Lois Ehlert this week. It’s about a rascally squirrel who is up to all sorts of tricks during summer time in the city. He digs and eats and zips and hides, but when he sneaks inside an apartment window, a little boy comes up with a nutty solution to get him out.
To make our craft I started by finding this free squirrel template at All Kids Network and printed it out 8×10 size and made sure to click the option to make sure all of the picture fit in the dimensions (it made it a bit smaller which was what I wanted). The original template has eyes and a nose drawn on it but I wanted to make my own so I opened it up in Paint and erased them before printing it out. I don’t think it is really necessary though because the paint and things I added probably would have covered them up anyways.
After cutting out all the pieces we painted them using a pom-pom attached to a clothespin. Not only do my kids think it’s fun to paint this way, but by dabbing it with the pom-pom it gave it more texture looking more like fur on the animal.
I forgot to get pictures of how I made my acorns but I simply used the acorn in the template to trace 10 of them on brown construction paper. Then we used dark brown paint to paint the tops of them. I drew a light pencil mark at the top so Luke knew where to stop painting.
While the paint was drying we assembled our layered background. I started by cutting a large hill out of light colored green paper and glued it onto our blue construction paper background.
Then I created another smaller hill in dark green construction paper. It was the same width of the blue paper so it made it easy. On one end of it I also cut out a section of it just like in the book where we could bury some of our acorns.
Only glue half of the dark green hill onto your paper at first so you can see where to glue on your acorns inside the hole.
After gluing down the acorns in the hole, glue the rest of the hill down.
Next we used some brown paint to paint a tree on top of our hills, just like in the story. We also cut out some orange leaves and added them to the tree, along with a couple acorns.
At this point our squirrel’s were all dry so we glued all the sections together and glued it onto our background page. We also glued the rest of our acorns on the page, including one in the squirrel’s hand.
Lastly, we added details to the face. We could still see the smile outline from the template so we traced it with a black marker. For the nose I cut off a small piece from a black pom-pom and we glued it on and then we glued on a googly eye.
Luke insisted on having a red squirrel. It’s his favorite color so of course I didn’t resist and it turned out so cute!
Happy Crafting!!
Linking up to THESE Parties.
Little Wonders' Days says
November 2, 2011 at 11:44 PMThis is a super cute craft! We enjoyed both of these books during our squirrel theme week too.
Jen @ Creating with the J's says
November 3, 2011 at 12:26 AMLove it! Projects like this definitely make me miss teaching! Thanks for sharing!
TerinAleah says
November 3, 2011 at 11:42 AMI'm a new follower! 🙂 I love your crafts!!
http://terinaleah27.blogspot.com/
Michelle says
November 3, 2011 at 1:51 PMWow! That's an awesome re-creation! Your blog is very cute. Very happy to have found it! Thanks for hosting the hop. And please forgive me for this. . . but, I think you and your kids might like it…I have a giveaway going on for a personalized Wooden puzzle right now. There are some really cute ones I think you and your kids would enjoy. Stop by if you like!
Rose says
November 3, 2011 at 4:42 PMSo cute. And I love the painting idea.
Dorie says
November 3, 2011 at 8:29 PMTurned out great! I like the layering of the pieces, something my youngest would like to do – assemble the picture.
maggy, red ted art says
November 4, 2011 at 1:45 PMOooh what a cute squirrel, I love how you layered the picture. Really fun.
Thanks for sharing on Kids Get Crafty!
Maggy
Lorie says
November 4, 2011 at 9:39 PMAdorable! Love this!
LocalFunForKids says
November 4, 2011 at 11:50 PMThanks so much for linking up with ' Fun for kid's Friday. That little squirrel is absolutely adorable!
The Outlaw Mom says
November 5, 2011 at 3:57 AMSo cute! I love this layered and colorful idea. Thanks for sharing 🙂
Beth (www.livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com) says
November 5, 2011 at 6:36 PMCute, Cute, Cute! I wanted to invite you over to link up at my TGIF Linky Party – http://livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com/search/label/Linkey%20Parties
Beth =-)
Lori @ La-La's Home Daycare says
November 5, 2011 at 8:56 PMVery very nice! My kids don't know when to stop painting,hehe! I just let them go.
Thanks for sharing on the Holiday Kid Craft Link Up!
Lori
Michelle says
November 6, 2011 at 1:20 AMThis is so cute! Love the acorns and squirrel! 🙂
Carrie says
November 6, 2011 at 2:05 AMI love it, Rachel! We have been reading The Busy Little Squirrel by Nancy Tafuri and this will be great to go along with it as well. Thank you for sharing it at Crafty Moms Share!
Happyscrapper42 says
November 6, 2011 at 3:08 AMVery cute. I hadn't read either of these books but now I want to just so we can do the craft.
JDaniel4's Mom says
November 6, 2011 at 7:45 PMI really love this craft. I will have to look for the books.
Justine says
November 7, 2011 at 1:25 PMLove those books! The picture came out gorgeous! I also really like the idea of painting with a pom pom. I never thought of it, but now I can't wait to try it! My little guy adores painting!
Aimee from Classified: Mom says
November 7, 2011 at 6:14 PMI love this idea- I just pinned it on Pinterest! Thank you for sharing this with us on The Sunday Showcase
Rebekah says
November 9, 2011 at 3:40 AMAdorable squirrel!!