Alligators are a fascinating creator. We’re explore alligator crafts and making alligator crafts for our after school fun this week. They tie in well with our Letter A Crafts too!
Alligator Crafts and Activities for Kids
What a fun way to end Alligator week with a big win for the Gators last night! Confession time… we are a Gator Family. Since football season has started we had some fun this week in After School Express & Tot School with Alligators.
We found that a great afterschool activity is going to the library. We just pack a snack to eat on the way there and then I have two happy girls reading books and finding new ones to check out for the week. This week we found a few that were about alligators. We made a point to check out both Non Fiction and Fiction and talked about the differences.
We looked through some old photos from our trips to the local zoo and parks and found these two pictures to write a story about. We used them as story prompts. Photos can make great inspirations for young writers. The story they write can also be non fiction of fiction. It’s fun to see the where their imagination takes them.
One afternoon we decided to create alligator scales with bubbleprint. Both of the girls had a lot of fun doing it and singing alligator songs together. Singing songs on a chart is a great way to learn to read! Here’s a printable of the Alligator Song we created together. I love when siblings can do things together afterschool and both be learning at different levels.
We made these really fun gator handprints into T-shirts for this season but you could easily just do them as a craft project afterschool. Grab some green and black paint and have some fun. We cut out and added the fabric letters UF and sewed them on for a project too. I had my daughter decide where she wanted them to go. Then she added the orange and blue dots. She called it a necklace.
Resources for Alligator Fun
Alligator Pie Unit
Alligator Song and Resource from Debbie Clement
Alligator Song and Resource from Debbie Clement
Using Technology as an After School Resource
As our children get older and enter school I do believe that there is a time a place for technology and that it plays an important role in education. At times we simple cannot take them to physically see the things we’re talking about so it’s important to give them at least the chance to watch someone involved with a topic. The Kratts Brothers
have been around since my son was little, he’s 19 now, and are a fun and educational resource for teaching children about animals. Here’s a little clip about Alligators. For more info you can follow our amazon affiliate link for their products available.
Zoboomafoo was my son’s favorite and Wild Kratts is my daughter’s favorites.
We are one of the hosts of the Virtual Book Club for Kids. Here is Mercer Mayer himself reading the story There’s an Alligator under My Bed
. I love watching authors read the story that they have written and how they bring them to life! This one in particular reminds me of those anxious feelings we all had as children as we went to bed along in our rooms and has a playful way about it.
Hope you have lots of fun as you create these alligator projects and activities with your children! Here’s a fun little picture from one of our trips to the Nature trail near us where the alligators really live! How many alligators can you see behind me? Stayed tuned for Amanda’s post about Sewing an Alligator Purse on Tuesday! {It’s Here}
Awesome alligator activities, Kim! I was here to pin my dinosaur activities. But then I had to add my greater than less than alligator activities when I was reminded of all the fun alligators are to study! Thanks for hosting the Afterschool Link Party! Deb @ LivingMontessoriNow.com
These are awesome activities! Thanks for linking them up to The Mommy Club. I'm featuring you today at 11:45 on my facebook page 🙂
Stop over tonight after 9pm when the new linky gets posted!
Have a super day!
Crystal
http://www.crystalandcomp.com/2012/09/the-mommy-club-share-your-resources-and-solutions-61/
This looks awesome! Usually we use the hand prints for Thanksgiving making turkeys. Another fun way to use the hand print, thanks!!!
What a cute gator hand print. Not a big fan of the UF, though. haha Thanks for linking up to tip-toe thru tuesday. I hope we see you next week.
It looks like you had a great week of fun and learning. We love going to the library too – Anna could spend hours there.
Love how you used fun clips as well – Charlie and Lola is one of our favourites too.
What fantastic alligator activities! Thank you for also including the video links. I love the alligator scales using bubble wrap. Thank you for linking up this week to my Enchanted Thursdays Blog Hop!
this is a great party! added it to my linky list, so i'll be back for the next one. thanks for sharing this on tip-toe thru tuesday!
btw.. and feel free to delete this. but did you know that you have your captcha/word verification on? just wondering because some want it on and some don't 🙂