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I am creating a felt animal for my son for every letter of the alphabet in a new series: ABC Felt Animals! We have had so much fun making these animals together — and they are helping him learn the phonetic sounds of the letters, so it has been very worth the time and effort put in to make these felt animals!

This week has been devoted to the letter W. I gave John the choice between a walrus and a whale, and he couldn’t decide, but after a couple days of deliberation, he settled on a whale. I decided to (try) to make this a humpback whale. I included the little “hump” as well as the belly. The belly should be ribbed and the face should have big bumps and barnacles on it, and of course, they are really gray in real life and not bright blue.

All you need to make a Felt Whale is:

felt: blue (could be dark gray or navy), gray, black (or you can use paper!)
cotton balls
hot glue gun (or Elmer’s if you’re just using colored paper)
amazing Fiskar scissors (if you’re going to work with felt at all, you have to check these scissors out!)

** This craft uses a hot glue gun — please keep out of the reach of children — these are for adult use only!!

This is the only way this makes sense to me. I cut the picture I drew out (free printable at the end of this post!) into pieces. Then, I assemble all of my felt pieces — I cut two each of the body and flippers.

The belly of the whale will fit over the blue body, with the flippers attached on either side.

I made the flippers first and set them aside.

My adorable “helper”. Fun mama-son time during May’s nap!Putting the whale together takes time and patience to get it “just right” (I never do), and I use a fork so I don’t burn my fingers!After the body is done, set the belly on it and try to make it fit (it may not be “perfect” but will be awfully close!)
And glue the flippers inside the belly!Now your eyes — we just cut little gray and black circles. Make sure to place them according to the picture!Our completed whale, sailing with the captain in his Fort Magic ship! (Review coming soon!! Hint: this toy is incredible.)

And May is ecstatic about the whale too!

I made a template and a coloring page for you to make your own little whale! I am not an artist, but I hope you find this helpful!

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You can download the Whale printable here!

Book Extension

We learned all about Humpback Whales from the sweet little book The Little Whale. It was very educational, as it travels with a mama and baby humpback whale and their eating, migrating, sleeping habits. It also teaches about whaling — without being too graphic.