Hanging Bat Craft for Kids, Inspired by Stellaluna
Just like in the children’s book Stellaluna, this little hanging bat craft holds on best by its feet, all wrapped up in its wings.
It’s almost October, and I’ve been thinking again about bats! You’ll already find a chalk art bat craft and a leaf bat craft here on the blog. I’ve also been working on a roundup of Stellaluna crafts, printables and activities – it’s almost done.
But why not add one more bat craft? I don’t have a hanging bat craft yet!
Plus, this one is brown, like the character Stellaluna.
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If you don’t already know the book Stellaluna (affiliate link), go grab it from your nearest library or bookstore. It’s such a sweet story, with themes of friendship, fitting in, and being true to yourself.
As part of the story, Stellaluna learns that bats rest best hanging by their feet.
Hanging Bat Craft
We made this bat two ways. In the first, the bony wings can open and close. In the second, my favorite, the wings are glued snugly closed.
Materials
You will need the following:
- 2 large brown pompoms
- 1 small black pompom
- Googly eyes
- 1 Brown pipe cleaner
- School glue or craft glue
- Hot glue
- Black paper for ears
- Scissors
- Brown coffee filter
- 2 brown plastic coffee stirring sticks (optional)
- Tape, if you’re using the stir sticks
Instructions
- First, glue the two large brown pompoms together. You can use school glue and allow lots of drying time. Or, an adult can use hot glue for instant results.
- Next, form the pipe cleaner into legs and toes. This is what it looks like partly unwound:
- Then, glue on the eyes and nose. Lay it down on its back to dry.
- Next, cut out ears from your black paper and glue those on too.
- Lean the bat up against something while her ears dry. Or, again, an adult can just use hot glue.
- I hot glued the legs on after the face and ears, but it would also make sense to do that first (especially if you’re preping ahead with hot glue). I think it would be hard to do this step with white glue.
- Now it’s time to work on the wings. Start by cutting the coffee filter in half.
- Then fold the filter in half, then half again, and then half again (so fold it into 8ths).
- Finally, cut the wide end on an angle like this:
- Unfold your filter, and you have bat wings! You can tape on short segments of stir sticks, or not. Then, glue your bat down with her wings set a little high.
- You can hang her from a pencil with her wings spread open…
- Or, you can glue her wings closed….
- … and hang her from a thin dowel or twig, ready for a nap.
Classroom Hanging Bat Craft
If I had more time, I’d also love to show you a more classroom-friendly version of this craft. Here’s what I would do:
- Cut the coffee filter “wings” like I showed you above. Then, glue just the center of them to a sheet of dark blue or black paper, leaving the ends of the wings free.
- Cut out a brown paper bat body and glue it on top of the wings.
- Glue on the face, ears, and nose as above. Then, draw on the legs with a marker.
- Wrap the wings around the body and glue them closed.
Finally, if you’d also like to try a related engineering challenge, check out this Stellaluna-inspired bat activity.
Happy Crafting!