Desert Activities

We're going to be gone for three weeks on a trip to Nevada and California. In fact, I've scheduled this post to be published while we're on that vacation. We're going to Las Vegas with my husband's work, and while we're there, we'll rent a car, drive 5 hours to San Diego where we've rented a house for two weeks. I'm so excited.

To get us excited about our trip, I check out the book Crafts For Kids Who Are Wild About Deserts.  We many some really fun memories from picking our favorite craft ideas from the book. The picture at the top of the post was a really simple camel craft using an envelope and brown construction paper for the legs, neck and face.  

We also made a diamondback rattlesnake from old egg cartons and brown, white and black paint. It took a while to make, but the kids liked the movable rattle on the back made from another egg carton.

Steve doesn't usually get to be involved as much with our projects since he's gone most of the day, but one evening Jared said he really wanted Steve to do a "desert craft" with him.  They chose to make a paper holder coyote. This is a really, really simple craft to make, too. You just need an empty cereal box, brown construction paper and a black marker.

This little skunk's main attraction is the movable "stink" near his tail.  Too cute! 

We also read a lot about the desert in Australia and the dreamstimes paintings the aboriginal people did on cave walls.  Alexa loved surfing the web for sites displaying dreamstimes artwork and read a bit about the stories that went along with the paintings. We started our own dreamstime painting, but the kids quickly petered out. I really enjoyed making mine, so I've included it here for you all to check out, too.

There were a lot of other desert crafts and activities we did and will do like cooking cactus leaves, making a coral snake bracelet and making petroglyphs.  You can read about them in Deserts: An Activity Guide for Ages 6-9.