By: Babysits Canada
The Greater Vancouver Zoo has plenty of fun and exciting animals to go see! Now you can create some of these animals at home, just follow along! This is a great activity for kids to do with their parents or a babysitter. Don’t have a babysitter? Find one at Babysits.ca !
Whether it’s an old shoe box or a delivery package, we all tend to have some cardboard lying around! Instead of throwing it in the recycling bin, why not use it to craft some zoo animals?
To get started, all you’ll need is a pair of scissors, a pencil and some cardboard. If you know what animal you’d like to create, you can start by drawing a simple outline onto cardboard. You don’t need to be too picky because you can add details later with a bit of paint!
The idea here is to keep your shapes super simple! We created animal shapes to loosely represent each of our zoo animals, and then created “U” shaped legs which could be slotted into place via two slits we’d cut into each body shape.
And now it’s painting time! We used acrylic paint in colours that matched the animals’ natural appearance. Of course, if you want to spice things up a bit and create a purple elephant or a blue giraffe, go right ahead! Once the base coats have dried, you can go in with a smaller brush to add all those fun extra details like the giraffe’s spots.
Once you’ve finished painting your cardboard animals and they’ve had time to dry, you can finally piece them together. Take a look at the Greater Vancouver Zoo animals we created for some inspiration!
1. Pompey the Giraffe
2. Sahara the Zebra
3. Kira the Red Kangaroo
4. Gemma the Bactrian Camel
5. Omari the Ostrich
And voila, you’ll have your own mini zoo in no time! These guys look great hanging out on a shelf next to children’s books, or even strung by some string and turned into a mobile.
We would love to see your finished creations! Take a picture and tag @greatervancouverzoo and @babysits on Instagram! Did you enjoy this DIY?
Check out our other DIY’s for more great ideas for kids!
