You can treat this as a sea otter or a river otter.  I was thinking sea otter when I designed it which is why I have the clam and rock to go with him, but you can discard those and have your children draw a fish for a river otter (or just leave him with empty hands).

Materials:

• toilet paper roll or cardboard tube,
• printer,
• something to color with,
• scissors,
• glue,
• paper

Instructions:

• Print out the craft template of choice.
• Color (if using the black and white version of the craft) and cut out the template pieces.
• Glue the large rectangular piece on first to cover the tube.  Toilet paper rolls come in different sizes, so if you find the rectangle is a bit too big, just trim it down.  If you find it's a bit too small, just cut out another small piece to fill in the gap.
• Glue on the head, legs and arms (see photo on this page if you get stuck).
• Glue the rock into one hand and the clam into the other.  You can talk about how sea otters balance a rock on their tummy and then crack open clams, oysters and other mollusks on the rock.
• Cut out the tail and fold it in half so it's colored on both sides
   
  • Glue the halves together
  • Bend the tab and glue to the back of the toilet paper rolll (using the tab to make a 3D effect)

Templates:

• Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

Template   (color) or   (B&W)