Octopus Colouring Sheet and other nature crafts

Running out of kids' activities for the holidays?

Thanks to illustrator Fraser Williamson, each of the "Whose?" books has a matching activity which helps extend the children's thinking about the book concepts.

Whose Beak is This? has a kākā mask to colour and make; Whose Feet are These? has a gecko to colour and add some 'sticky' feet; now there is a colouring sheet for Whose Home is This? based on the colourful illustration of wheke, the octopus.

DOWNLOAD A4 Colouring Sheet

Matching Birds to their Beaks - activity for children

I've been reading 'Whose Beak is This?' and 'Whose Feet are These?' to audiences in schools and libraries. It's interesting to see which birds children already know well enough to guess it from its beak, or which animals are easy to guess from their feet. This has to be the easiest!


Beaks are amazing adaptations to the environment and the food birds eat. There are beaks for nectar sipping, beaks for shellfish digging, beaks for fishing and so on. If you pay close attention to the ones in the book, you could then guess what food is eaten by a bird with a similar shape beak. For example, bellbirds (korimako) have a similar curved beak to a tui and they are also nectar eaters.

Beak Matching Activity

Gecko Feet - how do they stick?

In "Whose Feet are These?" I wrote about geckos having 'sticky' feet, which seemed a good way to describe gecko feet for young children. But how exactly are geckos' feet sticky? Here's a photo of the foot of a common or raukawa gecko, doesn't it look amazing!

Raukawa Gecko foot - each gecko species has
a different footprint

Make a Gecko with Sticky Feet

Did you know that geckos have 'sticky' feet? They can even walk upside down on ceilings or up a pane of glass! Children at Porirua, Cannons Creek and Whitby Libraries had a go at making their own geckos with sticky feet yesterday as part of my author tour.

A brightly coloured gecko with googly eyes