Giraffe Zoo Animal Toilet Paper Roll Crafts for Kids

Isn’t this giraffe cute? I have had so much fun sharing these zoo animal crafts with you. To round out the series, I had to include the giraffe zoo animal toilet paper roll crafts for kids. Sweet Pea has loved giraffes ever since she chewed on Sophie. When we visit the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore, we always try to feed the giraffes. Read on to see how to make this cute giraffe and the other zoo animal toilet paper roll crafts for kids as well.

 

Giraffe Zoo Animal Toilet Paper Roll Crafts for Kids

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Materials Needed:

• 1 toilet paper roll
• 1 sheet yellow construction paper or cardstock
• 1 brown foam sheet
• 1 yellow foam sheet
• 1 pink foam sheet
• craft glue
• glue gun and glue
• black sharpie
• brown sharpie or marker
• hole punch
• 1 black pom pom
• 1 yellow pipe cleaner
• 2 googly eyes
• scissors
• yellow paint (tempura or acrylic)
• 1 Jumbo craft stick

How to Make the Giraffe Part One:

• In a perfect world, you would be able to find craft rolls at the store that are already rolled in the color you want. However, in my experience, the available colors are rather limited. No worries.. it is surprisingly easy to cover the toilet paper roll in the color of paper you want.
  • You don’t want too much excess paper. Line the toilet paper roll up with the bottom edge of the construction paper or cardstock and make a small pencil mark line to denote the length of the toilet paper roll. Move the roll a few inches down the paper and do the same thing. Take a ruler or straight edge and draw a cut line.
  • ‘Wrap’ the construction paper around the toilet paper roll to determine how much paper you will need to cover the roll, but not have too much overlap. Again, draw a rough cut line in pencil.
  • Cut out the toilet paper roll footprint. It should be a rectangular piece of paper.
• Place the toilet paper roll at the end of the paper. Line it up so that the ends are aligned.
• Apply a thin line of glue on the construction paper directly in front of the toilet paper roll, where the roll touches the paper. Gently ‘roll’ the toilet paper roll onto the glue so that the end if glued on. Then, squeeze glue, covering the rest of the construction paper. Tip: don’t use too much glue. You don’t want glue oozing out the sides and end of the toilet paper roll like a jelly donut. You just want enough glue to ensure the paper sticks to the toilet paper roll.
• ‘Roll’ the rest of the construction paper around the toilet paper roll. Apply another thin layer of glue on the end of the paper in order to ensure the toilet paper roll is completely covered.
• Trim excess paper as needed.

How to Make the Giraffe Part Two:

• Paint the craft stick yellow and let it dry. You only need to paint one side of the craft stick.
• Trace the giraffe head on the back side of the yellow foam. You are basically drawing a smaller version of a horse or donkey head. I am not a great artist, but found it relatively easy to draw freehand. You will need to draw ‘most’ of an oval. However, instead of completing the oval shape, draw the longer ears and then connect the two ears. The ears will not be as long as with the zebra. Remember.. it doesn’t really matter if there are tracing marks on the back of the giraffe head. If you are concerned about not being able to see the trace marks, use pencil and then erase the marks after you cut out the head
• Cut out the giraffe head and trim the foam until you get a giraffe head shape that suits your taste.
• Cut out a thin pink piece of foam for the giraffe tongue.
• Cut out a series of giraffe spots from the brown foam. You will need about 20 spots. It is not important that they are uniform. Look at a picture of a giraffe and notice that they are kind of irregular rectangles.
• Cut out two small brown circles for the giraffe antennae. Additionally, cut two small (about 1″ long) pieces of yellow pipe cleaner for the antennae as well.
• Cut out two smallish semi-circles from the yellow foam for the hooves. Use the black sharpie to draw 3 lines on each hoof for the ‘toes.’
• Use the brown sharpie or marker to draw/replicate the brown giraffe spots on the craft stick and giraffe head. Make sure to draw symmetrical inner ear brown spots.
• Glue the googly eyes on with either craft glue or the glue gun. Note: My daughter did help with the googly eyes, but the eyes proved to be a little small for her to manipulate, so she lost interest quickly.
• Use the glue gun to glue the two small brown circles to the top of each short yellow pipe cleaner piece. Then glue each of these antennae to the back of the giraffe head.
• Once the craft stick dries, glue the head to the front of the craft stick with the glue gun.
• Once the giraffe head has been glued to the craft stick, lift up the front ‘chin’ of the giraffe head and glue the pink tongue underneath so that the tongue sticks out from underneath the head.
• Use the glue gun to glue on the brown giraffe spots to the yellow toilet paper roll. After the brown spots are glued on, glue the hooves on.

Now your giraffe is finished! Pretty cute, right?

One final note: Even though I wanted to make this craft with my daughter, I ended up making most of it on my own. My daughter is 2 years old and still working on all of her fine motor skills. She will love playing with this giraffe, and all the other zoo animals I am making. However, her involvement in the creation of this craft was minimal. If your kids are older, they will easily be able to do more of the craft than my 2 year old did.

Thanks for checking out this super cute zoo animal toilet paper roll crafts for kids series!
Sara

Did you like this craft? Would you like to see more of the zoo animal toilet paper roll crafts for kids ideas? Check out these posts: