Paper Bag Bird

What You Need:

• Brown paper lunch bag
• Newspaper
• Tempera paint
• Paintbrushes
• Yellow or orange construction paper
• Rubber band
• Scissors
• Glue stick
• Googly eyes
• Soda bottle or vase taller than the paper bag
• Optional: Glitter, feathers, sequins, acrylic gems, beads, buttons

What You Do:

1. Place a folded paper bag in front of your child and encourage her to paint both sides with bright colors. Let dry.
2. Unfold the bag and paint its sides and any areas that may have been missed. Let dry.
3. Help your child place the open bag over the bottle to help it stand up on its own.
4. Encourage her to glue on any decorative materials she likes such as glitter, beads, feathers, etc.
5. Help her to ball up newspaper until she has two balls that are about the size of a baseball. This will be the stuffing for the bird.
6. Stuff the ball of crumpled paper into top of the bag to create the bird's head. Rubber band it into place.
7. Cut long slits about 1 inch in width into the remaining painted paper bag jutting out from the bird's head to create some feathers. Use a pencil to roll them from the end of the paper up to the rubber band.
8. Fold a piece of construction paper in half. Draw a triangle with the base matching the fold. Keeping the paper folded, cut out two sides of the triangle, keeping the fold attached. You should end up with a diamond shape.
9. Fold the diamond shape in half lengthwise. Unfold it and fold it in half widthwise to create a beak. Glue the beak to the bird's face.
10. Keeping the construction paper folded, have your child draw a bird wing, then cut it out with scissors to create two identical wings.
11. Glue the wings to the sides of the bird.
12. Finally, have her glue the googly eyes in place to give her bird a little personality.