Category Archives: Eric Carle

Have silhouettes cut out like the pictures above.

On a separate piece of construction paper or wax paper have the children glue down tissue paper pieces.

Glue the silhouette on top of the tissue paper and cut away the excess.

Glue entire piece onto a separate piece of construction paper.

OR

On one side of the cut out silhouettes let the children stick glue tissue all around the inner edges, covering all open areas.

Flip it over and glue onto a separate piece of construction paper.

These are shown on a big green leaf and the other picture is completed on white construction paper.

Have a line drawn where the caterpillar is located.

Have the children put glue on the line the caterpillar will be located.

Crumple up tissue paper and push down on the glue line.  This creates the caterpillar body.

Decorate where the head, legs and antenna are located.  Either have them paint them, even finger paint them, or use a small brush and tempera paint.  The legs would look nice using the finger prints of the children.  Or have paper cut outs to use that can be glued down.

Using a paint and brush let the children put some paint on the top of the tissue paper.  They can start with a base coat and add one more color on top of the base coat.

Start with a cut out from construction paper.  Something like the butterfly in the picture.

Using sponges and different colors of tempera paint, stamp the colors onto the butterfly.

Decorate the entire butterfly with puffy paint.

Moving all around the butterfly adding thin lines everywhere.

Put a center, head and antennas on the butterfly. Either draw a face or decorate with googly eyes.

Start with a four piece section of an egg cartoon.

Put hole punches in for the feet.

Spread glue all over the egg carton and decorate with all green tissue paper, different shades of green, or even different colors.

Add a small pomp on head with googly eyes.

OR

You can use the same concept to make a caterpillar.  Cut away at a row of the egg carton, about 4 will do.  Put hole punches in for the legs.  Each egg section will need two legs, one on each side.  Eight legs all together.

Have a large caterpillar cutout.

If it doesn’t have a cut out for an antenna, use a hole bunch to make one.

Cover the caterpillar with different colored tissue paper.

Once covered it can be painted with a thin layer of watered down glue over tissue so they lay flat.

Add googly eyes.

Have a turtle shell cut out from white construction paper.  Spread glue all over the construction paper.  Glue down pieces of green tissue paper.

Next glue down the shell on a separate piece of construction paper.

Decorate around the shell with pre cut out tortoise pieces; head, feet, tail.

Decorate with a sunny yellow sun in the top right corner.

Finish head with a googly eye.

To get the tissue paper flat you can use a THIN LAYER of watered down glue over tissue.

If you can get your hands on a copy of the story “Brown Bear, Brown Bear”, by Eric Carle, it would be a great book to read to the children if time permits.   It can be read before or after the project is completed.

On a legal sheet of paper you want to have the words, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?  I see ………… looking at me.” printed on the bottom.   The child should write their name on the line.  (The idea of the project is that the bear is looking at them).   For example, “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? I see Will looking at me.”  Also have a center circle drawn in the middle of the page a little larger then the cut out portion of the paper plate, which I am about to explain.

The next thing is to have a paper plate with the center circle of the plate already cut out.  Have scraps of different brown paper about one or two inches large.  Have plenty of paper for each child to use.  You don’t want scimpy bears.  You can have a center bowl of the paper if the children are in groups or seperate with a baggy of brown paper for each child.  Examples of brown paper are; brown paper bags, non bleached coffee filters, wrapping paper, decorative scrap paper.  Notice I didn’t mention tissue paper.  If you can find brown tissue paper definately use it.  I have had a very hard time in the past finding brown tissue paper.  It’s just not very popular. You can crumple the paper up if you want to give it more texture.  I actually liked working with the coffee filter but they are not always easy to get your hands on either.

In the center of the paper, inside the circle that is there, have the children draw pictures of themselves.  They can color it with crayons or markers, however you would like.

Then move onto the plate.  Have the children use thier stick glue and put glue all over the front side of the paper plate.  Then have them start placing pieces of brown paper all around the plate.  The idea is to cover the entire plate with a lot of brown paper.  Glue will have to be added to the paper sticks when layered.  The end result is to have some of the paper sticking up, not glued down totally flat, to give an appearance of fluffy fut sticking up.

Next, glue the plate into the center of the piece of legal paper.  Or, you may decide to have the plate already glued to the paper before class.  You might be thinking why not just have a circle drawn in the center of the paper and have the kids work within the circle.  You can do it this way.  The paper plate serves as a template for the children.  So it turns out neater.

After the paper plate is glued into the center of the page then add brown ears, cut out of construction paper, can be glued underneath the top of the plate.  I had ears precut.  Simple ears the shape of an upside down V.

If time permits and everything is not a gluey mess go around the room having the children hold up their artwork.  Each child can say read the saying with their name in it.

One other thing that I did was take a picture of the entire class together.  I made one of the projects and placed a picture of the class in the center.  The caption read, “Brown Bear, Brown, What do you see?  I see children looking at me.”  This is nice if you plan on hanging up the projects.

The project might do well on a smaller paper plate as well.  Like the appitizer size.  Then the words can be printed on a letter size piece of paper.  Everything stays the same just on a smaller scale.