Introduction: Your Own Paper Brave Little Parrot

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About: During the COVID-19 crisis, all of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship's religious services moved into an online-only format. I generally organize Sunday school activities for the children of the Fellowship …

Hello, friends! This activity is a companion to the story "The Brave Little Parrot." Make your own flapping parrot friend and flap along!

Supplies

  • the bird template from One Colorful Day (click here)
  • scissors
  • markers or crayons
  • glue or tape

Step 1: Print Out the Bird Template!

It's best to print this on cardstock. If you don't have any cardstock, you can print out the template on regular printer paper. Then, after you've colored it and cut it out, but before you've folded the body, you can glue the pieces to an empty cereal box from your recycling bin and cut around them. Then you can proceed with the rest of the steps as outlined. Boom! Cardstock.

If you don't have a working printer, you can take a piece of white paper and a washable marker, and carefully trace the template above by placing the paper on your computer screen. This works best if it's a laptop whose screen can be folded all the way down, but I've done it on a regular desktop! You can use your tracing as a pattern.

Step 2: Color Your Parrot!

I colored mine to look like a scarlet macaw, which is a species of parrot native to Central and South America. You can color yours to look like whatever you want! Maybe you and your family can look up different kinds of parrots to see which kind you like best.

Step 3: Cut Out the Pieces.

Get a grown-up or older sibling to help if you're having trouble with the beak or the tail.

If you are using regular paper and you want to reinforce it with a cereal box or other thin cardboard, now is the time to do that!

Step 4: Fold the Body.

Here's the only tricky part. You need to fold both halves of the bird's body along the dotted lines like an accordion or a fan. Reference the pictures to get the angles right.

Step 5: Attach the Wings.

Get out a glue stick or some tape and stick your bird's wings to the area that says "Glue."

Step 6: Attach Both Halves of the Bird Together.

Glue both halves of the head together. Then glue both halves of the tail together. But don't glue the middle where it's folded with the wings! That's how your bird flaps.

Step 7: Flap Your Bird!

Hold the bird's head in one hand and the tail in the other and move them back and forth. Your bird flaps! Cool! Maybe you should give your bird a name!