I'll show some to you.
Your mother will not
mind at all if I do.
I have not read this book yet, but it is part of the Cat in the Hat Knows a lot About That series. (We love the video version in our house!) While it is not officially written by Dr. Seuss, it is written in Seuss-style and of course features The Cat in the Hat!
- Talk about what a reptile is and how it is different than a mammal.
- Learn ordinal numbers with this worksheet.
- First School has a reptile index full of fun activities to do!
- I love this idea from Child Fun: Use yarn to measure out actual measurements of different kinds of snakes. Your child will be amazed to see how long snakes can be!
While this craft was inspired by Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss, it goes along well with this book, too. Melissa Blough posted this idea at www.education.com. Challenge your child to create his/her own stack of walnut shell turtles. Who can make the tallest stack before they topple over?
Supplies needed: Walnut shells (at least 4 whole empty shells), blue paint (or whatever color turtles you want), paintbrush, glue, white pom-poms (small and medium), small wiggly eyes or black felt
What to do:
- Paint each walnut shell your desired color. Each turtle will be made from half of a walnut shell.
- Allow shells to dry completely.
- Glue five white pom-poms onto each shell to represent the turtle's legs and head.
- Let turtle dry.
- Add two wiggly (or felt eyes so there's not a choking hazard) to the head of each turtle. Allow these to dry as well.
- Repeat until you have made at least eight turtles.
Playing the game: Have your child try to carefully stack the turtles on top of each other to balance them into one vertical stack. How high can he/she go? If this is too easy, make more turtles and try stacking more! If it’s too difficult, encourage your child to stack the turtles in a pyramid shape. Have your child count each turtle while he/she is stacking to sneak in some math skills!
Do you know the difference between an alligator and a crocodile? Talk to your child about how these two reptiles are different. Science Kids has a fun fact sheet with pictures that you could use. Defenders of Wildlife has nice fact sheets, too. You can find the crocodile one here and the alligator one here.
After you know the difference between the two, you can decide if you want to make an egg carton alligator or crocodile. Hint: Snout shape will be different.
Egg Carton Alligator (or Crocodile)
Supplies needed: Bottom part of an egg carton, black and white construction paper, dark and light green paint, paintbrush, q-tip, glue
What to do:
- Paint the outside of the egg carton green.
- Allow paint to dry completely.
- Cut a tail and snout shape. Remember, an alligator has a more rounded snout while a crocodile has more of a "V" shape snout.
- Glue the tail and snout on by folding the straight end and gluing it to the underside of the alligator.
- Use a q-tip to dab different colors of green paint on the alligators tail and snout.
- Cut eye shapes out of the white construction a paper and pupils from the black construction paper.
- Glue the eyes together and glue onto the alligator's head.
- Now you have a new alligator (or crocodile) friend!
I got the inspiration for this recipe from Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook. They twist the breadsticks together to make Schlottz's Knots from the book Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? I thought if breadsticks make good tails, they will make good snakes. I have not gotten a chance to make mine yet, but will update post when I do.
Ingredients: package of bread stick dough (8 sticks), 2 tablespoons water, 1 tablespoon coarse sea salt, peppercorns (or raisins) for the eyes, red pepper for the tongue finely grated Parmesan or Gruyere cheese (if desired)
Supplies: non-stick cookie sheet, cooking brush, measuring spoons, knife
What to do:
- Preheat oven per package directions.
- Slice red pepper for "tongues."
- Separate the dough into 8 sticks.
- Stretch the dough a little and place it on a non-stick cookie sheet.
- Repeat with remaining dough. Depending on how long you make your snakes, you may need a second cookie sheet.
- Push in peppercorns for eyes and a slice of red pepper for the tongue.
- Brush each snake with water and sprinkle with a little of the sea salt.
- Bake until golden brown and firm, about 15-20 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese the last few minutes of baking, letting the cheese become slightly golden. Keep an eye on them because bake time will be dependent on how thin your snakes are.
- Gobble up!
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