Loon Craft and Learning About the Lakes of Minnesota

Welcome to Minnesota!

The weather is finally getting nice. We’re know for our cold winters, with plenty of snow and temperatures plunging down below zero degrees Fahrenheit. But when the weather is nice, we get outside.

Minnesota marks the beginning of the Mississippi River in Itasca State Park. It begins as a small stream that you can walk across.

We’re known for our lakes and have over 90,000 miles of shoreline. That’s more than California and Florida – combined!

The lakes are where you often find our state bird, the common loon. And to celebrate our state bird, we’re going to make a fun loon craft.

Disclosure: I received a free copy of the book, Travels With Charlie: Across the Midwest, in order to create this post. All opinions and activities are my own. This post also contains Amazon Affiliate and other affiliate links. Please see my disclosure for more details.

The common loon makes its summer home along the shorelines of our lakes. We’re always so excited to see a loon family, especially when their babies are little as they often ride on their mother’s back.

Even when you can’t see the loons, you can hear them. Their call is distinct and sometimes quite haunting.

If you want to hear a loon, check out the Cornell Lab of Ornithology All About Birds site. They have several recordings of a loon call.

We are already big fans of the common loon and wanted to their image in an art project. This project is easy to do with a very pretty result.

Supplies Needed:

Watercolor paper (this works best, but you can use any white paper you have on hand)
Watercolors
Black construction paper
Oil pastels
Scissors
Glue

Create your loon craft

We began by painting our background.

Loons are often found swimming on a lake, so we used blue and white watercolors to paint lake waters for our background.

While waiting for our background to dry, we worked on our loon.

We drew a simple silhouette on the black construction paper and cut it out.

We copied an image found in the book, Loon at Northwood Lake by Elizabeth Ring. It’s a wonderful book to read if you want to learn more about the common loon.

Next, we used our oil pastels to draw the details on the loon.

My preschooler drew a red eye and white details. She opted for spots instead of the checked pattern on the loons back and included the white belly. She’s never been one to get bogged down in the details!

Once our background was dry, we glued our loon to it.

I love the results of our loon craft and love learning more about Minnesota. Travels With Charlie: Across the Midwest served as our jumping off point for this project. It was so much fun to hear about some of the more quirky finds in our state, like the Giant Prairie Chicken Statue and the Jolly Green Giant Statue. I’ve got to see them both sometime!

About Booking Across the USA

Booking Across the USA is a collaborative project with over 50 bloggers participating. Stop by the landing page and see all the other stops on the route. You’ll be able to find a project for each of the 50 states. What fun! Hope you enjoy traveling across all 50 states.

You May Also Enjoy One of These Fun Projects:

Aboriginal Dot Painting: Exploring Australia Through Art

Cityscape Printmaking

Moose Silhouette Paintings

US State Trading Cards at Royal Baloo

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Terri Thompson

Terri is a writer and mom of two elementary-aged girls. She has a passion for learning and is always looking for ways to make learning fun. You can find her at Better Than Homework where she shares fun learning activities or Creative Family Fun where she shares art, craft, and family fun ideas.

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