Cardboard Forest Animals

These are quick, light and easy toys that you can take with you in your backpack on nature hikes and adventures. They don’t weigh very much so they won’t weigh down your backpack and make it really heavy. You can use them to tell stories and play in your backyard.

You can draw on them, paint them and decorate them however you want. You can make new legs that are silly and ridiculous or you could even draw, create and ask your parent to cut out your own animal you made up!

How I made these ones is I printed out some animal silhouettes and then I cut them out and cut off their legs!

I traced the animal body onto some cardboard and cut it out.

Then I cut the little triangle slits (not too wide or your legs will fall off) that let’s the legs slide onto the body and fit snugly.

The inspiration for this project came from a recent post I read on Red Ted Art where she made her daughter some jungle animals.

What I love about this project is that you could make them pretty much anywhere. All you need is:

  • A pair of scissors
  • Cardboard
  • A pen

That’s it!

As a substitute teacher I look forward to using this new skill to make toys for the children I care for. Many child care programs don’t seem to have very good open ended toys that allow children to be creative.

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