Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Paper Bat Craft and Decoration

This year my daughter, Molly (5) is all about bats for Halloween! As part of our traditional Halloween Countdown Calendar, we made a special bat project one day! We cut out several paper bats and used them a few different ways.

Start with sheets of black construction paper and fold them in half; either direction is fine. Outline half a bat, including a little ear, pointy wing, and a foot.  I used a purple crayon so the lines wouldn't show up so much on the final project, and I made several per sheet.  Later, Molly told me they were all too skinny to we fattened them up a bit by cutting outside the lines!

Cut out the bats one at a time. This was great practice with the scissors for Molly because a bat shape has a good amount of straight edges and curves without being too difficult to cut out.  She loved unfolding each one to see how it turned out.

The ones that turned out the best became our little "kites." Decorate yours with little faces, fur, and lines on the wings using crayons that will show up easily on the black paper. Silver was our favorite!


When that's done, stick a piece of scotch tape on both sides of it's belly, fold the bat in half, and hole punch it so you end up with two holes side by side. The tape just makes it stronger. You could also use card stock for stronger bats! String some yarn through the two holes and tie a knot.  Be sure there's a pretty good length of yarn attached, maybe about three feet so you can run with your bat "flying" behind you! When Ben (2) woke up from his nap, he was excited to join in the chasing of the bats!



The rest of our bats became wall decorations like some I saw on Pinterest recently! Fold each wing down so it looks like your bat is flapping its wings. Use a piece of rolled up scotch tape to attach it to your wall.  When you put several bats together on your wall, it looks like they're flying around the room! I filled my stairwell with them and I love it!!  This is the first year I've done this but I wouldn't be surprised if the bats come out every year now!


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