"A House for Hermit Crab"

Megan and Nicholas have been studying the Apologia science book, "Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day" for science. Really, it's mostly Nicholas; Megan will occasionally sit in but usually I read related picture books and/or do a more hands-on craft or project with her. (Or head to the zoo! Which is coming up now that fall is here.)

For the last two weeks Nick and I have been reading about crustaceans. We have had so much fun reading about some of the amazing creatures God made! For Megan, I chose "A House for Hermit Crab" by Eric Carle and found the cutest craft to go along with it! (I've been harboring a secret...I'm a Pinterest addict. For anyone not yet aware of this new "site", it's an online pin board onto which you can "pin" ideas from other sites into categories. It's the very best way to organize all those great ideas I find on other blogs. I heart Pinterest :) It is by invitation only so if you'd like an invitation to this fabulous site let me know and I'll send it!)

I Heart Crafty Things  is the blog that has the original and more detailed instructions. Check it out!

My condensed version:

In making our hermit crab, the first thing we did was paint a little hand red and smoosh it onto our paper for the crab:

 Oh Megan... ;)

Next, I got out the cheap paper plates, the ones that aren't good for anything except crafting ;) then we cut out a small section along the edge (sorry, I didn't photograph each step, but you can click the link above to see each step or you can kind of see it in our finished pictures). With a permanent marker, I drew the swirls for the shell, then the kids used watercolors to help the shells look more like the ones in the book.

 I drew the stem for our sea anemone, the coral, the snail, and the starfish free-hand and they cut them out and decorated them. For the sea anemone , we used strips of tissue paper to finish it up. For the lantern fish, I printed off a clip art fish then they colored that and cut it out.

 We used pipe cleaners and googly eyes for the eyes. I had to hot glue them on, everything else stayed on with Elmer's.

We made a mess but it was a very fun project! And it holds a bit of truth too since hermit crabs will often stick a sea anemone on their shell! When they outgrow their shell and need to move to a bigger one, they take their sea anemone along!