Porcupines

Some of my favorite animals to see at the zoo are the porcupines. For a couple of years my family was gifted yearly passes to a local zoo. My kids liked to see the Ocelot walking around in its enclosure. They get excited to watch the otters playing in the water. At the wolf enclosure we all try to spot as many wolves possible. They blend in so well with the rocks in the landscape. I like all of that, too. However, my favorite animal to see is the porcupine sitting up in the tree. I would really like to see one alive in the wild.   

Many Medias for Porcupines

Two of my boys enjoy playing with playdough and letting their creativity shine. Dough of many kinds peak their interests. Whether it is playdough, air dry model clay, kinetic sand, scented varieties of all of the items listed, or anything similar, they have a fun time with it.  I like that kinetic sand vacuums up nicely. There are rules in our house where they can and cannot use dough. (If you email me, I can tell you how I got bright blue playdough out of light brown carpet!)

Put it all together

We had some air-dry model clay left over from a previous project and my preschooler wanted to make something with it. Looking through my craft supplies, I found some decorative bamboo skewers. He started to add the skewers right away to the model clay. The skewers could go anywhere on the shape of clay.

Other Ideas

Our porcupines were very simple and not detailed. We could have shaped them before using the skewers. They would have been more pear-shaped, with the narrow end representing the head. Another idea would be to add a face, either with markers or other materials found in the craft supplies. You could get as detailed as you would like and have time for. My kiddo was content and proud of his work in spite of the lack of detail. I thought his porcupine was great, too! That was what we did. Any option of dough could be used in place of the air dry model clay. Also, toothpicks or other pick-type sticks could be used instead of skewers. Use your own creativity.