Three Tropical Rain Forest Talking Toucans Rhyme and a Craft

This post is part of a series that is focused on the rainforest. It will include crafts, activities, and snacks. You can use the activities in this series as a unit or individually. Yesterday I shared with you a really cute blue morpho butterfly finger play and craft. Today’s rainforest animal is the toucan.

Tropical Rain Forest Three Talking Toucan Rhyme

Let’s start with a rhyme about toucans. The Three Talking Toucans don’t appear to have had any hand or body motions associated with it. I found the rhyme share on numerous sites and none of them shared any. I am sharing some that I think will work, but you can make up your own of course.

Three Talking Toucans

Three talking toucans sitting in a tree. (Hold one arm up like a tree with fingers spread out wide. Then hold three fingers from the other hand at the top of the tree.)

The first one turned and squawked at me!  (Form a mouth with one hand. Open and close your hand like it is squawking.)

Three little toucans sitting in a row. (Hold up three fingers wide apart.)

The second one said, “I flap my wings, watch me go!”(Flap your arms up and down.)

Three little toucans sitting side by side (Hold up three fingers that are close together.)

The third one said, “My bright beak, I open wide!”(Hold up a hand like it is a mouth closed and slowly open it.)

Hand and Footprint Craft

After sharing the finger play, you can have your children craft a toucan. We made one by tracing one of my son’s shoes and his hand. The outline of his shoe and hand became the body and tail of the toucan.

We then cut out a wing shape. One of the wing’s sides was given a scalloped edge.

After having all the body parts we needed a cut of black paper complete, we cut out a beak. Toucans have various colors on their beaks. We chose to have the beak’s base color bright green.

Then various colors of tissue paper were cut out to go on the beak. You could have your children trace a section of the beak onto the tissue paper before cutting the tissue out. Another option is to glue the tissue paper onto the beak. When the glue has dried you can trim off the extra tissue. Either way will give stripes on your toucan’s beak.

Tissue paper was chosen because it can be challenging to cut. I wanted my son to work on his fine motor skills. Cutting thin tissue paper worked on those skills.

When the tissue paper on the beak had dried, the beak was glued to the toucan’s head.  All that was left was to add a large wiggly eye and feet.

The feet were cut out of orange scrap paper. If you want to have your toucan displayed to look like it is flying you may choose to leave off its feet.

If you want to read about toucans with your children here are some wonderful toucan-themed books.

Timmy Toucan Dropped 10 Guavas (Mike Monkey Book 2)-This is a wonderful non-fiction book about toucans.

Toucans and Other Birds – This is a wonderful non-fiction book about birds. If you have children that love facts. This would be a good book for them.

Timmy Toucan Dropped 10 Guavas– What fun it is to count alongside Timmy Toucan!

If you try this finger play or craft or any of the other rainforest activities, please leave me a comment below telling me about how it went or share a picture of your toucan on my Facebook page.