Cardboard Owls: Children's DIY Activity

I have been collecting cardboard rolls for awhile now and with the collection I have been getting, I needed to either use them up or start to get rid of them.  When I cam across this cardboard owls activity, I know that it would be a great way to utilize some of them.  This ended up being a fun and easy activity that Liam thoroughly enjoyed and was fun for me as well.  There was adult supervision required and I did most of the cutting so that we could get wing shapes, but Liam (my 3 year old son) was great and sorting, gluing and attaching things.  I would definitely do this or any similar activity again and now we have cute little owls sitting around the house. 

Supplies:
Cardboard tubes (1 for each owl if toilet paper, 2 owls per paper towel)
Scrap Paper
Pipe Cleaners
Googly Eyes
Colored Poms
Glue Stick (Tacky Glue works even better)
Glitter Glue (for optional hair that my son insisted upon haha)

Directions:
Fold the top of the toilet paper rolls down toward the middle to form the owls ears.
Cut up various scraps of textured and colored paper and  pipe cleaners to use.  Apply glue to the various textured papers and pipe cleaners.  Attach wings, textures, nose pom, googly eyes, and any other decorations you want to use. Beads and buttons would be fun too.

Get your supplies out!

Fold the cardboard tops to make ears

Sort your art supplies for ease of use

Pretend to cut your hand (jk you can skip this step haha)

Attach the googly eyes and a pom nose

After attaching wings and legs on the first owl search for a nose for the second one

Glue on the nose

Check out the owls with awesome glitter hair

Put the eyes on the 3rd owl

Extra concentration helps eyes stick on better

End with glitter glue hair

Revel in their owlity cuteness

If you would like to see the past DIY activities that we have completed together, check them out here:

Alphabet Train

Make Your Own Rainstorm

Orange Sugar Scrub

Meditation Bottle

Meditation Jar: Our Attempt

I posted a blog a couple of days ago with a few DIY kid projects that I wanted Liam and I to try.  We decided to try the meditation jar ourselves.  It turned out quite well overall.  Liam had a wonderful time and it was minimal mess.  We had one small mishap when I accidentally hit the table and spilled one of the bottles before the water was in it, but we cleaned it up easily.
We followed the steps but not in the exact order.  The two changes we would make would be that  we should have put the glitter in after the water so that there was no glue globs and that we would not have put as much food coloring in, but with Liam in charge it still turned out great!  The pictures don't show the glitter as well as in person.
I was really excited to try this out as the alternative to timeout to see if it would be effective on Liam or not.  Later in the day we did end up needing to use it, and when it was a time that I would have put Liam into timeout, I had him take one of the bottles and shake it up.  The first time he wanted a different color than the one I handed to him but then he calmed down right away.  However the second time it was amazing, once I could get it into his hand and have him shake it up and tell him to watch the glitter fall to the bottom, almost instantly he was calm and didn't even need to wait for the glitter to finish falling and he could go on with his day!  I truly couldn't believe it.  I know it sounds really hoaxy, but I swear that is exactly how it worked.  No idea if it will continue to work this way or not, but it's nice to at least have another effective step of some way to get Liam in control of his feelings and change the situation without timeout. 

Supplies:
- Plastic Bottle (or you can use the mason jar or baby food jar that was in the original post)
- Glitter Glue
- Food Coloring
- Warm Water

Directions:
Mix about 1 tablespoon of glitter glue with 1 cup of warm water...depending on the size of your bottle. We decided to do more than one so that there would be options.  I noticed that each time it was needed Liam wanted to try a different color.  I also changed to a  plastic bottle from glass so that it was not as easily breakable.  

Here are our step by step photos!  Enjoy and good luck, I would love to see any photos and hear any stories of anyone else who has or does try this out!  Good luck, it worked fabulously for us.

Getting our supplies ready

Adding the Glitter Glue

Adding Food Coloring

Add Warm Water & Shake

If You want to see the original DIY:Activities Blog Click: DIY Kid Activities