Kookaburra Sits in the Armstrong Tree

The kookaburra was a creation that I made up - using the idea from Thanksgiving of making birds with handprints. The kookaburra is an Australian bird that even has a song about it. While known for it's laughing call, there are actually different types of kookaburras. The Laughing Kookaburra is the largest and most widely known, but there is also a blue-winged kookaburra!

The Echidna Craft

The echidna is the only other monotreme in the world - and amazingly enough, these creatures are also found in Australia! They remind us of a porcupine, but cuter. Our versions consisted of painted styrofoam balls, golf tees (cut them down so they aren't so long, but save one pointy piece to use as the snout) and toothpicks for the echidna's spines!

Starting - 4 golf tees (cut down) for legs, pointy part of golf tee as snout, toothpicks for spines.

Tate is carefully putting toothpicks into the styrofoam ball.

Kezia loved this part!

Finally, use a Sharpie or other marker to poke holes for eyes and make them black.

 Kezia's and Katiree's echidnas 

Tate's and Zane's echidnas 

Mr. Platypus

We continued in our journey through Australia to study the platypus - the odd creature that seems to be part duck, part beaver and part otter. Only, its simply an amazing creature! A monotreme - a mammal that lays eggs. God has a great imagination!

Our platypuses were not nearly as fancy as His - but the kids had fun!


First, cut the pieces out. I found a printable paper for the platypus parts. I had to enlarge it and print on brown cardstock (you could print on white and let them color it), but it worked. We used brown paper bags that we stuffed with papers we were going to recycle. I folded the top of the bag down into a triangle and stapled it so that the bill would glue over it nicely.

Then we attached pieces with glue and held them on with clothespins.

We used big googly eyes for the fun of it!

Five little platypuses sitting in a row...

Up close and personal

And one sweet little girl with her platypus!

Wombats

 

After studying about wombats, Katiree and Tate (and Kezia) made wombat origami. Kezia's "origami" was to wrinkle the paper as best as she could, throw it across the room and then want her picture taken with her "wombat". Such a funny girl. Katiree and Tate's wombat's turned out wonderfully. Zane was outside playing and didn't want to make a wombat. Since he's a couple of years from being technically kindergarten, I don't force "school" with him. He joins a lot, especially for listening to books and for science, so I'm happy to let him play for other aspects of school!

I found the directions for making this wombat at: http://www.moocowfanclub.com/Activities/Crafts/origami/wombat