Paper towel roll bat

STREAM Activity: Paper Towel Roll Bat

Get in the Spooky Spirit with this Easy Bat Craft!
Activity best for children ages four and up

Bats are creatures with impressive flying and feeding capabilities. Bats can reach a speed of 60mph thanks to their unique wing structure! The Mexican free tailed bat can reach up to 100mph making it the fastest mammal on Earth. Mammals usually have hair or fur, are warm-blooded, and they usually need milk as babies. In addition to their great flying feature, bats play an important role in controlling insect populations. They can eat up to 1,200 mosquitoes per hour using echolocation to detect and capture their prey. This high rate makes them essential for managing mosquito numbers. Today we’ll celebrate these unique flying mammals by making our very own!

VOCABULARY

  • Sound waves: Vibrations that travel through that help us hear.

  • Echolocation: The process of using sound waves to find the location of an object.

GUIDING QUESTIONS

  • Bats are nocturnal meaning that they are active at night, do you know any other animals that are nocturnal?

MATERIALS

  • Black & white construction paper

  • Tape or glue

  • Scissors

  • Paper towel roll

  • Black marker

DIRECTIONS

STEP 1

Cut your paper towel roll in half. This will be the body of our bat!

Paper towel roll being cut in half

STEP 2

Grab your black construction paper and cut the paper to be slightly taller than the height of your paper towel roll.

Black construction paper

STEP 3

Wrap your paper towel roll with the black construction paper and tape it together.

Wrapped paper towel roll in black paper.

STEP 4

With the extra paper sticking out at the top, fold it inward to create two ears for your bat.

Folded paper towel roll bat

STEP 5

Now, draw a mouth and eyes on the white construction paper and cut them out.

Cut out details for bat

STEP 6

You can either glue or tape the eyes and teeth on your bat.

Taping down bat features

STEP 7

To create your bat’s wings, draw to wings on a piece of black construction paper. Cut them out and then tape them to the back of your bat.

Bat wings added to the paper towel roll

STEP 8

Now you have a cute bat that can be used for decoration, a gift, or a toy to play with!

Paper towel roll bat