Sam woke up at the indecent hour of 5:00 a.m., so Jane and I needed something to do on this cold and dreary rainy morning until he woke up from his 7:00 a.m. nap.

We couldn’t play outside, but The Crafty Crow saved the day with this great idea from the journey into unschooling. The construction paper lion looked the easiest and we set out to make one. But as always, what we started out to do didn’t end up exactly as we planned!

Here’s how we made our construction paper octopus with what I now know are six arms and two legs (not eight arms or eight legs).

Materials:

• multi-colored construction paper
• paper or plastic plates
• scissors
• a glue stick

Instructions:

First, we grabbed leftover plates from Jane’s Special Agent Oso themed birthday party.

Then, we cut out strips from the construction paper to make the lion’s mane-turned-octopus arms and legs.

Next, I curled the paper strips using the scissors (just as you would with ribbon) and Jane glued the curled strips to the plate.

Finally, I cut out the eyes, nose and mouth from the construction paper scraps and Jane glued them onto the plate to make the octopus’s face.

It turned out that the face on the “octopus” scared Jane and she begged me to get rid of it!

But . . . she wasn’t afraid to continue our project with markers - that’s my girl!

Here’s her rendition of an octopus:

I think it evokes “deep sea,” don’t you?

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Chrissy – who has written 426 posts on The Outlaw Mom® Blog - Creative Living in a Conventional World.

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