Kid Territory: Crafts: Make Your Own California Condor!
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Move your mouse over this condor picture for a fun fact about condors! |
The San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park has a wonderful exhibit: Condor Ridge. For the first time since the last remaining California condors were brought into captivity in 1987 we have the chance to see these magnificent birds and other native North American animals that have been saved from extinction because of the dedication and teamwork of zoos and wildlife organizations working together.
Now you can make your own California condor!
What you need
• 9-inch white paper plate
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Stapler
• Black and pink crayons or markers
• Black, white, and pink tissue paper
• Liquid starch
• Paint brush
• White or yellow pipe cleaners
• 12 inches of black yarn
What you do
1.
Print out the condor pattern, and trace it onto the paper
plate facing upside down (try to be as exact to the pattern
as possible).
Make sure you print the pattern the same size as your plate. If it is printing either too large or too small, make sure the print settings in your Netscape or Explorer do not tell it to enlarge, reduce or scale to the size of the paper. Since the plate circle is nine inches and most home printers use smaller paper, a part of the circle that has no other pattern on it is cut off. That's okay because the edge of the pattern is just the edge of the plate.
The
condor pattern is stored in PDF Format which can be read and
printed with the free Adobe
Acrobat Reader plug-in.
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Move your mouse over the picture above for another fun fact about condors! |
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2. Follow the lines on the pattern and cut. Next, cut around the condor's head.
3. Excluding the beak, color the head and neck pink and the rest of the paper plate black.
4. Cut the pink tissue paper into little squares. With the brush, cover the head and neck with the liquid starch, placing the pink tissue paper on top. (If any of the paper goes off the head, you can trim around the head, when it dries, with the scissors.)
5. To represent the California condor's shiny, sleek feathers, cut black tissue paper into rectangular squares and fringe the bottom to give it a feathery look. Brush liquid starch on the bottom edge and begin placing the "feathers" around the paper plate, working your way up to the center of the plate (near the head). Let it dry. If you want, you can also cut an inch-long fringe around the outside edge of the plate to add a more feathery look.
6. California condors have a hairy-looking fringe of black feathers that form a ring around their neck. Cut the black yarn into several one-inch pieces and glue the pieces on top of the tissue paper feathers, to form the ring.
7. Slip your condor wings into the slits of the plate and staple the wings to the body in the back.
8. California condors have a triangular patch of white feathers underneath their wings. Cut four pieces of white tissue paper about 21/2 inches long and fringe the bottom to look like feathers. Liquid starch a couple of those pieces together and stick them onto the "wing pits", or under your bird's wings.
9. Cut two pieces of pipe cleaners 21/2-inches long, and two pipe cleaners two inches long. Wrap the two-inch pipe cleaners around the longer ones and form them into toes and claws. Scotch tape the pipe cleaners inside the plate to form your condor's legs.
10. Make eyes for your condor using paper, crayons, or markers.
Now you too can have these beautiful birds flying freely once again!
More
Wild Animal Park:
Condor Ridge
Animal Bytes:
California Condor
Animal-themed Crafts: Nature's
Sun Catcher
