Rockin' Foot Print Robins

After coming across this photo on Pinterest, I was looking forward to making some cute foot print robins with my two favorite little people. Although, the robin happens to be our state bird, I think of it more as the first sign of spring. With this gorgeous weather, we've been seeing tons of robins lately, and it seems like a perfect early spring project.

{Rockin' Robins by Mia, Age 5 and Logan, Age 2 1/2 (with help from Mama)}

Materials:

• paper
• brown paint
• red paint
• Styrofoam tray to hold paint
• paintbrushes
• newspaper to protect work surface
• orange or yellow marker
• black marker

Optional Materials:

• glue 
• wiggly eye
• feathers
• black puffy paint

Directions:

1. Protect work surface with newspaper. (Tip: I found it's easiest to do this on the floor and have the child sit in a chair until you are ready to make the foot print.) Paint your child's foot brown. Lay your paper on top of the newspaper. Then help your child make a foot print on the paper. Let the paint dry.
2. Fill in the robin's breast with red paint. (This is the instep area of the foot print.) Older kids can do this themselves.
3. Draw a beak and legs with an orange or yellow marker. (The head of the robin is the heel of the foot print.)
4. Add an eye. Mia chose to do this with black marker. Logan used a wiggly eye. (The bird looks perpetually surprised now, perhaps because the wiggly eye is a bit large for the size of the bird's head.) You could also use black puffy paint for the eye as Mia did with her blue jay.
5. If you like, you can also add a feather for the robin's wing. Mia did this later when she decided to create a foot print cardinal. She also made a blue jay with a white feather breast and blue feather tuft on its head. If you like making these foot print robins (or blue jays and cardinals like Mia did) you may also like foot print ducks. What other birds can you come up with?

{Cardinal by Mia, Age 5}

{Blue Jay by Mia, Age 5}