Painting Whales {The Snail and the Whale}

Today's "Book of the Day" was The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson.  I love the rhythm of Donaldson's books and they are always a joy to read.  I especially like the illustrations in this one (by Axel Scheffler) because the kids get a chance to identify all sorts of different animals and habitats.  For our little activity we watched a video of a beached whale rescue and used watercolor paints to color whales..

In the story, the humpback whale gets beached in a bay and is rescued by the firefighters, schoolchildren, and all the people in the town.  I was excited to find a YouTube video for the kids to watch of a real baby humpback being rescued after getting beached!  Although it doesn't show the whale swimming out to sea, it does show how the rescuers have to keep the whale wet and cool and how they are digging a channel to help him get back to the sea when the tide comes up, which are all things that were in the book as well.

Then it was on to our craft..

 

E and L are 3.5 years old.  I drew E's whale on her paper and she worked very diligently on painting inside the lines.  Isn't it wonderful?

 

L decided that she wanted to draw her own well.  It's a little hard to see in the photo, but there was definitely some planning involved - I love the tail!  She then cut out her whale.  L is getting pretty good at cutting things out, soon I'll have to find some throw-away magazines for her so she can practice cutting out pictures.

A while ago, we did an entire Mini Unit on Whales if you want more ideas..

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