Bunny Body Parts + A Sad Tail (I Mean Tale)

I'm going to start this post off with a sad tale.

When I was 11, I had a German lop-eared rabbit named Nibbles. She was my pet and parent's answer to me and my brother's severe fear of dogs following the trauma of a dog attack. I fed her spinach, chocolate rice-krispie treats, and included her in family home videos over the course of a year together. 

We were a good fit.

One day, she got spooked by a cat outside and attempted to make a break for it through the closed door of her wire hatch, which didn't go so well. Nibbles paralyzed herself from the neck down and spent the remainder of her days watching me from pillow where she could only wiggle her little brown nose and gaze up at me adoringly.

Nibbles had a short life but a good one, despite a freakish and unfortunate demise. 

Moral of the story: you can't rehabilitate a paralyzed rabbit. Also, rabbits are good companions and fun for children.

They're cute, they're cuddly, and they're also an endless source of inspiration for April-themed speech and language activities. 

That being said, this morning I decided to get creative and put together a new printable activity called "Bunny Body Parts"! You can find in my Teachers Pay Teachers store here.

I chose to use this today to put together puppets with my kids to target some of the following goals:

Age 2-3:

- Receptive/expressive body parts

- Imitation of gross actions (pointing to body parts in imitation, placing corresponding picture to body part on self, actions such as "hopping")

- Requesting 

- Imitation of single syllables/words

- Spring vocabulary

Age 4-5:

- Articulation: /f/ in initial position of words ("Do his eyes go on his /f/ace or body?"); drill to receive each body part; received an "egg" for the bunny for each page of drill completed

- Possessives: "Who's eyes are these? His eyes." 

- Expanded sentence structure: "I want to glue the __________."

- Verbs/actions

- Pronouns: pick a verb card: "I jump. Do you jump? Do bunnies jump? They jump." 

Here is the final product also seen with some Spanish verb cards I used to target expanded sentences and actions. The kids thought it was hilarious to imagine bunnies doing some of the things we identified only people do, such as driving. 

I also brought along Play-Doh and Spring-time cookie cutters for a corresponding sensory/language activity. 

This download comes with all the pieces you need to make a puppet along with three bonus Easter eggs and a carrot for further reinforcement or activities.

You could also make each piece into a magnet and make a fun cookie sheet activity, too.

A couple things I should have done in advance to prep this activity:

a) Cut out all the pieces in advance and put them in baggies (unless your kids are older and can help, there are several body parts and the process is too time-consuming), and

b) Limit the number of body parts for little ones (i.e., only necessary parts such as the nose, eyes, etc.) 

Over all, these puppets got big "wow's" from all my kiddos. I used .39 cent white bags from Michael's which paired with the light/pastel coloring in the document made the activity very-cost effective.

Feel free to check out "Bunny Body Parts" and leave me any feedback if you decide to use it! 

Also, do you have any sad or strange Easter pet stories?