In Like A Lion

March certainly came roaring in like a lion, dumping even more snow on us this year. I took it as an opportunity to teach Annabelle about the old saying "March comes in like a lion, and out like a lamb". We made a few fun lion projects, and had fun teaching Hazel how to "roar" like a lion, and "baa" like a lamb. These projects are all pretty straight-forward, and children can either make the whole thing independently, or with a little help, depending on skill and interest level.
Here are the projects we made:

Lion mask with pipe-cleaner mane

For this project, we only made one, but the girls collaborated to make it. I drew the face on the back of a paper plate, and had Hazel color it with a yellow marker. Then, I punched holes around the perimeter of the plate, and snipped some pipe cleaners in half. Annabelle poked the pipe-cleaners through the holes, and I helped her twist them into place. If you don't have pipe-cleaners, you can also use ribbon or string.

Lion toilet paper tube

The lion toilet paper tube took the most prep-work of the three projects. I have included at the bottom of this post a template to make it easier for you. You can print the template on white computer paper and have the child color it before cutting it out, or you may wish to just cut out yellow and orange construction paper pieces like we did. For the tube itself, you can also paint the tube yellow instead of using yellow paper. Just make sure you give it time to dry before gluing on the rest of the pieces.

Lion and lamb shaker

Rather than telling you how I made this project, I'm going to tell you how I will make it next time. Start by gluing two paper plates together, with a handful of dried pasta or beans between them. My husband had a good point that rice will be more likely to slip out from between the plates, and is a total pain to clean up. (If you wait until the end to do this, you will be struggling to staple through thick cotton balls, between strips of construction paper.) Leave a little space at the bottom to slip a pop stick between them with some strong glue. Next, draw your lion and lamb faces on each plate, and paint one plate yellow. When dried, clue strips of construction paper around the lion plate, fold in half, and glue the ends together. When that glue has dried, turn the plates over to clue cotton balls to the lamb side of the plate.