The Starfish- An almost entirely free craft; ASL and Spanish language videos!

I know I already made an entire blogpost about our ocean life crafts, but Jared mentioned that there were a few I left out; crabs, octopi, and starfish. (Anyone else feel weird say octopi? Octopuses is obviously wrong, but octopi sounds too formal.)

Anyway, I laid awake trying to figure out how to make a textured starfish. I wanted this to be an original idea. I have no problem with being a copycat, because that's how most people get most of their ideas; seeing something else, mulling it over, and putting a new spin on it. I always try to credit anyone who came up with an idea first, or gave me the inspiration to try something new, but I'm also proud to say this one is alllll mine. 

Materials: 

• I'm sorry, but the first thing you'll need is paint. We used orange because that's the stereotypical color of starfish, but you use whatever you feel like! 
• An old sock, or an old towel. I have a giant bin of old socks that I use for cleaning since I can't bear to throw anything away (don't worry, I'm not at the point where I need an intervention!) 😂
• A piece of cardboard. I used some cardboard from a Belvita cracker box (the Costco sized box) but you can use pizza boxes, cereal boxes, etc. 
• Glue
• An rotary cutter or a utility knife would be best, but a regular old pocket knife will also work.
• Googley eyes
• No glitter this time!!!! Yay!!!!

Directions:

• Depending on the age of your kids, you might want to cut the star shape out the night before, or have them do it with safe scissors. 

This is a kid's craft. It doesn't need to be perfect and neither do you.

• Glue the old piece of sock (or whatever) over the cardboard. Again, depending on the age of your kids, they may be able to help with this. Kit isn't to be trusted around glue yet.

• Cut around the cardboard. 

• Let them paint :) Add googley eyes when finished painting.

For follow up and preparation, we watched a few videos on YouTube about starfish and I was amazed to learn that they can eat barnacles. I have no idea why I found that so surprising. 

We also watched this video by Signing with Amber. She demonstrates a multitude of signs for ocean animals that I found very helpful. Kit also really enjoyed the video and was super excited to see her sign "seahorse" and had to point out her seahorse on the wall.

Signing seahorse next to the seahorses we made

This video by Language Learners does not have the word for starfish (Estrella de mar) but Kit really enjoyed watching it anyway. (As a sidetone- I try really hard to double check words that I learn for two reasons: First of all, I really want Kit to learn New Mexican Spanish as much as possible and there are sometimes vastly different words used depending on the region. For example, if you take a Spanish class, you will undoubtedly be taught that calcetines are socks. In New Mexico, however, the more common word for socks are medías, which is actually the word for hosiery in most places. Mitotero is a word for a loud, boisterous person who causes trouble in Mexico; in New Mexico, a mitotera is someone who is being a gossip or a busybody. Secondly, I'm sure we can all think of some English words that can have a totally innocent meaning, but a second, more impolite meaning that we would not say in front of our mothers 😂 The same is true in any language. Pulpo means octopus, but it can also mean a handsy man. So be careful!)

There is also this very cool visual dictionary that may help adults who are trying to pick up Spanish as well. 

If you try the starfish craft, let me know how it went!