Letter L - Paper Plate Lions (BTW, We Skipped a Few Letters)

This week we celebrate "L".

Yes, at this point, we are not following the alphabet in order. That's ok.  The letter this week at Rowan's school was "L" so when my mom was kind enough to bring us down some "L" activities, we were happy to go with the flow.

Today we made lions.

I chose this project because it focused on CUTTING, which is an important part of a child's motor skill development.

We used to do a lot of cutting at home, but lately I've been relying on school. However, apparently school mostly pre-cuts everything for them.  The last home project where I asked them to cut, they balked and got frustrated. Rowan was so out of practice that he was trying to cut with his left hand! Sometimes I wonder why I bother to pay for Pre-K.

I felt like this lion would offer easy, straight cutting lines to get them back on the wagon.

All you need is:

-Paper plate
-Construction paper (we used orange, yellow, brown, and black)
-Glue
-Scissors

Have the kids cut strips of colored paper and glue them around the paper plate to make the lion's mane.  A black triangle makes the nose and two black circles make the eyes.  Three thin strips of black for the whiskers.

So straight forward! (and it actually occupies them for a while, which is a pretty big deal)


Depending on skill level, help out as needed

I traced circles and a triangle for the eyes and nose and drew cutting lines on the colored construction paper since the the boys are rusty.

I also pre-cut the thin whisker strips, only because we are just re-introducing cutting and I didn't want them to get overwhelmed.  The mane, nose, and eyes were plenty practice.

And, I did an example lion to show what their goal was.

Of course, Rowan's lion's mane is in a pattern. Did you notice? (Yellow, brown, yellow, orange...repeat).  That kid.

Cid decided he wanted a "mommy lion"....soooo....no mane. But he did cut quite a few strips and eventually gave her a beard, and some sparkly glue and stickers.