The Crippled Lamb Story and Handprint Activity

We received this book as a present one year, and it's one of my favorite stories to read to the kids.  I love the message, and almost can't get through the story without tearing up.  I also really love any craft involving the kids' handprints so adorable handprint lambs were a must (We even made them last Easter too!)

First we gathered up all of the supplies.  I used a piece of plain cardstock to trace the kids' hands.  I wanted to turn the sheep into puppets for the kids to use while I read through the story this time, so that's what the Popsicle stick is for.  I initially planned on stapling the sheep to the stick, but I seriously underestimated the thickness of the jumbo Popsicle sticks and seriously overestimated the power of my mini stapler.  Luckily glue worked just fine instead!

I let the kids choose which hand they wanted to use and I traced and cut the handprints out for them.  Then they got to work creating their sheep.  We started by making the face with a googly eye and a black marker.

Then they covered the body of the sheep (or the palm of the hand) with glue and started attaching cotton balls for the sheep's wool.

Scunch in as many as you can as long as the glue holds.  You can tear apart the cotton balls or glue on the whole piece like we did.

After the wool was done, we added a little red bow just to make it extra special.  They also colored in the legs (or just the feet) with the black marker and attached the Popsicle sticks with the glue.

I think they turned out pretty darn cute!

Then they had fun holding them up and moving them around while we read through the story.  I loved every minute of it!