B is for Bat Craft

After reading Margaret Read MacDonald's retelling of one of Aesop's fables (click here, to find our review of the book), we talked about whether a bat is a bird, or a mammal. In the story bat switches back, and forth, between jerseys marked with an "A" for the animal team, or a "B" for the bird team - a natural lead into an alphabet craft.

I gave the girls each construction paper letter B's to glue onto the middle of another sheet.

Then, they added google eyes, and pompom noses.

So far, their efforts only looked like B's with personality, but not bats. I asked the girls what was missing, and happily, they answered "WINGS!".

Because bats are m...m...mmmmamals, and not b...b...birds, I had them use the sides of black crayon pieces to shade in letter M wings.

E (age 5), was right on it, but C (age 4), needed more help to understand - turning the M's to make them fit on the B, like wings, confused her, and she wasn't sure about shading with the side of the crayon. So, after her first, "strange" wing, I helped her shade it in, and then drew an M on the other side, for her to shade over. That worked.

Then, she used a white crayon to add teeth on the bat, a few white moths for it to eat, and her new, fancy signature.

She can print her name, but right now she's entering into a very creative, writing phase.

It's great to be a homeschooler.