Dragons Love Tacos Craft

BOOK: Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin

Link to Item at DPL

If you haven't read this book yet-- you must!  If you read it for a story time, hopefully you'll consider doing this craft in addition!!

Dragon Finger Puppets (with tiny tacos to match)!

First, you'll need some egg cartons.  I had the paper ones; I imagine the foam egg cartons would work too, however, you may have a harder time working with the glue on foam.

You'll need to cut the egg carton down to the individual cups for the dragons eyes.  

Each child will need two.

Next, you'll need a small paper plate.

Fold the plate in half and cut to shape the dragons mouth.  I cut just to the inside of the ripples.

You'll be left with a neat little piece that lends itself well to a taco shape.

Cut your tiny tacos from this piece.

We are fortunate enough to have pre-cut tissue paper squares of various colors.  I use these ALL the time!  If you don't also have a giant pickle jar full of them, I suggest you stop reading and go do that instead. :)

I used white Elmer's glue to cover the egg carton piece with tissue paper.  This will need to sit and dry for a little bit.

Next, color the shaped paper plate to match (or contrast) your dragon's eyes!

Glue the eyes onto the folded end of the paper plate.

Cut a dragon forked tongue out of red construction paper!

Add a few more embellishments (googly eyes and nostrils) and you have yourself a handsome dragon hand puppet hungry for some tacos!

Speaking of Tacos...

I hope you remember where you left those tiny tacos you cut a while ago!

First you'll need to color them yellow!  I used brown, green and red tissue paper to make the insides and just glued them all together.  I didn't think that tiny hands would have the patience to make these, so I decided to pre-fab them before.  There are two tacos for each dragon!!

Goodnight Sea Otter Craft

BOOK: Buenas Noches Pequena Nutria / Good Night, Little Sea Otter by Janet Halfmann

Link to Item at DPL

The artwork in the book is beautiful!  The little sea otter says goodnight to everyone in the sea before she goes to sleep.  Young readers will have a good time picking out and naming all of the animals!  At the end of the story, the mama otter wraps up little sea otter in kelp.  When reading, I thought, that's a cute touch-- but I doubt sea otters actually do that.  Turns out they do! (Marine Mammal Center- Sea Otter)

I could not pass up this great book and science tid-bit!  I needed to make a craft that was equally adorable and fun.

CRAFT: Goodnight Sea Otter

I drew a template of a sea otter and printed copies on card stock.  The paper the otter is printed on needs to be sturdy so that the tissue paper can wrap around.

The kids should color the otter however they like and cut out.  I had pre-cut strips of tissue paper in different shades of green.  I gave each child three strips!  We glued them onto the back of the colored otter with a glue stick.

At this point baby otter is ready to be wrapped up to sleep!!

How-To: Tissue Paper Flower

I made a bunch of these flowers to decorate for our mother's day program and add to the take home goodies for the kids!

First, cut out rectangles in the color you want the flowers to be.  I free handed all of these, they were all different widths and lengths and all the petals came out the same!

Next, you'll need to find something round.   The example I saw used a golf ball.  I used half a plastic easter egg, because that's what we had lying around!

Place the easter egg in the middle of the rectangle and twist the tissue paper around tightly.  Twist both sides.

Remove the easter egg and your petal is shaped!

Next, fold one of the stems down and trim the other.

Piece the petals together and tape the stems together at the bottom.

Next, cut a small square of yellow tissue paper.

Fold the square twice and twist the folded corner.  Dab some glue on the twist and insert into middle of flower.  I snipped at the yellow piece with scissors to add depth.

Finally, I cut a square of green tissue paper to be the stem.  I covered it with glue stick and wrapped around the bottom, twisting at the end.

Modified from: http://www.amazinginteriordesign.com/stunning-tissue-paper-flower-made-golf-ball/

Storytime: "I Know the River Loves Me" by Maya Christina Gonzalez

BOOK
Gonzalez, Maya Christina. I Know the River Loves Me. San Franciso, CA: Children's Book Press, 2009.
ISBN: 9780892392339
Copies @ DPL

This is an excellent bilingual storytime read!  The text is not too long or drawn out.  When I am reading the same text in English and Spanish I personally feel that shorter is better.  The little girl tells the story about the river.  She talks about how she spends time at the river and how she knows the river loves her.  The river "cools her down" when she gets too hot in the summer and "jumps and dances" when she comes.  The story also lightly touches on the importance of cleaning up after oneself in nature.  I found this book to have a perfect approach to an eco-friendly attitude without being preachy.  This allowed me to expand on the idea after reading the book with any "okay, we get it!!" looks.

ACTIVITY
In order to expand on the environmental responsibility theme, I created a "river" on a wheeled white board with felt fish, flowers, and...trash!  I had a simple interaction activity with them and asked them to tell me what did not belong in the river.  I used a plastic bottle, some paper, and a plastic 6 bottle holder.  When I do it again, I will try to save some more trash in advance.  The activity was short, but it got the kids thinking which is always the goal.

This is the only picture I snapped; I added the paper and soda rings later.

















I kept the river hidden from view of the kids while reading the story; I got a collective "gasp" from the group when I turned it around!







CRAFT
As an accompanying craft, the kids made their own river with construction paper and tissue paper.

This craft required a bit of prep work.  I cut the tissue strips and paper clipped 9 together.  I free handed a couple fish and made copies on white card stock.  Each child was given a full sheet of blue construction paper.

Instructions:
1. Fold the construction paper in half longways.
2. Cut pop-ups.  Do this by cutting two squares into the fold.  Push the squares through so that when you unfold the paper you have a pop-up.  (This is exactly how we made pop-up cards in elementary school...apparently kids don't do this anymore!!)

3. Color the fish and cut them out!
4. Glue fish onto the pop-ups.
5.  The tissue strips will be the water in the river.  Simply put glue on each end of the strip and attach.
6. Color the land!

I mimicked the illustrations in "I Know the River Loves Me" with my fish and land colors.  In case you are thinking, "this craft reads complicated"-- I agree!  But I will tell you confidently that everyone's came out looking great!