Asleep In the Stable by Will Hillenbrand

Last week, after Story Time, I grabbed a bunch of Christmas books that I thought the children would enjoy.  So far one of our favorites is Asleep in the Stable by Will Hillenbrand.  

In this story, all is quiet in the barn on this special night, everyone is asleep-except for the owls. (Can I mention that we are on the letter O? You can probably see where this is going, can't you?) The story of Baby Jesus is told by Mama Owl to her Baby Owl in such a sweet way.  Baby Owl is trying to understand this strange human creature with no feathers and who did not hatch from an egg, but is laying in a "nest."  The love of God is explained so beautifully.  

I also noted that the animals in this story (the ones asleep in the barn) seemed to be bringing a tune to my head as I read their description.  There was a donkey shaggy and brown, a white and red cow, a sheep with curly horns and also some doves.  I knew there was a Christmas song or poem that used these same descriptions, so I quick looked it up on Google.  The song is The Friendly Beasts, here is a link to the lyrics.

Now, on to the craft.  I decided we would make some O owls.  Of course we had the baby and the mama, so I was able to use lower case and upper case O's. I just drew and cut out the shapes below:

The girls glued the eyes on:

And the beaks:

Then they colored feathers onto the wings:

And glued the wings and legs/feet on.  Then the girls decided to play with them. Making them fly and pretending to have them eat. I believe Tabitha's was eating Mini Wheats.

Not sure what this was:

Then the girls glued them onto their perch. 

Which was more than meets the eye:

The owls are watching over baby Jesus in the stable.

(I did just realize we forgot to fill in the black circles inside the eyes.  We'll rectify that in the morning.)