Enrichment For Kids

During my stay in Texas, I was constantly saving our empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls to bring in to the zoo.  (This drove Paul crazy, but oh well!)  We would use them to hide treats in for the animals, or make mobiles for the cats to bat around.  It was a great way to recycle.  In fact we saved a lot of other things to donate too.
Well, after seeing a bunch of these tubes in our recycle box, I decided there must be some sort of fun craft or project we could do with them.  I found a great blog the other day, and checked that to see if there were any ideas.  Bingo! We decided to make an owl play set.  For the original post, visit  http://www.frugalfamilyfunblog.com/2010/10/owl-family-play-set.html.
When I brought the tubes in the kitchen, Jocey immediately grabbed two small ones, brought them to her face, and said, "I want to make noculars!"  So we did that too. 

The main ingredients you will need:
Different sized paper tubes
Paint, paintbrush
Manilla envelope
Markers/crayons/colored pencils
Scissors
Construction paper
Optional: pom-poms and cotton ball
For the Binoculars: yarn, and a wine cork or pipe-cleaner

The first thing we did was to paint the paper tubes.  This allowed the kids to get a little messy, but definitely got their artistic juices flowing.  For Jocey's binoculars, we used two small tubes.  For the owls, I cut the tubes into three different sizes.

Next we decided to make a back drop for the owls.  Using a manila envelope, I drew the outline of a tree on both sides of the crease.  We created a daytime scene on the left, and a nighttime scene on the right.  To add a little flair, we glued red pom-poms on the tree to make apples.  In the nighttime scene, we glued a cotton ball to make a moon.  This was a great way to pass the time while the tubes dried.

After our back drop was created, we took our dried tubes and created the owls.  First you fold down the top to create the horned look.  We did not need tape to hold it, it just stayed folded on its own.  The we cut out eyes (you could use googley eyes too- we didn't have any), the beak, and the wings, and glued those to the tube.  Viola!!

We now have a great little owl play set that was fun and inexpensive to make.  For Jo's binoculars, I connected the two tubes with a pipe-cleaner. To make it a bit sturdier, I cut the pipe cleaner in two, and had two connections between the tubes.  It would work better to use a wine cork, but we were fresh out of those!  Then I punched two small holes in each tube, and threaded yarn through to make a necklace. 

Guess who has been exploring?  It's amazing what you can see with paper tube binoculars!!