Kid Territory: Crafts: Bat Mask!
Use these materials to make your bat mask.
Bats are wonderful and very special mammals. Special because they are the only mammals that can truly fly, and wonderful because so many of them like to eat insects. Make this Bat Mask and see how wonderful and special you can be!
What you need
• 9-inch paper plate
• Scissors
• Hole punch
• Elastic or string
• Blue paint and paintbrush
• Glue
• Thin black cardboard
• Glow in the dark stars, or aluminum foil.
• Pipe cleaners (optional)
What you do
1. Paint the bottom of the paper plate blue to resemble a nighttime sky. (Remember, bats are awake when most of us are fast asleep!)
2. Cut the paper plate in half. Use one half of the plate for your mask and the other half for a friend. (Bats like to live with other bats in huge groups called colonies.)
3.
While the plate is drying, use the thin black cardboard to
make a simple outline of a bat, or follow the pattern given.
The bat's wings should be a little bit longer than the plate,
as in the photo. (Did you know that a bat's wings are similar
to our hands?)
The
bat pattern is stored in PDF Format which can be read and
printed with the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader plug-in.
4. When your blue plate is dry, hole punch a hole in each corner near the straight edge of the plate and put the string through so that it will fit around your head for a mask. (Bats like to sleep upside down, with their heads facing the ground!)
5. Glue the top of the black bat just above the straight edge of the plate. Put the mask up to your face and have an adult measure where your eyes are. Then punch a hole for each of your eyes so you can see through your mask. (Many bats use echolocation to "see" their way around in the dark.)
6. You can cut out stars and a moon from aluminum foil, but it sure is cool if you use glow in the dark stars!
7. If you like, you can add pipe cleaner feet, and cut out eyes and a bat beak, too. Now you're ready to fly!
More
Animal Bytes:
Bat, Insect
Animal-themed Crafts: Cat Mask, Wolf Mask
