I have been thinking a lot about puppets lately since my kiddos love them. For Mark Jacinto's 2nd birthday party back in 2011 his grandfather made a puppet theater for him. When we were in the moving process to go to San Francisco back in 2013, I just could not leave our big puppet theater behind.
Last Fall, I got the old puppets out and began entertaining the kids regularly. I started to notice how much they loved puppets and how much attention they gave to them. Sometimes, if Mr. Tiger(one of the puppets) asked them to do something they will do it faster than if we told them!
Since we have a regular puppet theater already, I thought it would be fun to make a finger puppet theater together. Coincidentally, the day we set ourselves to do this craft was the same day our friends gave us the most lovely knitted finger puppet Llamas I have ever seen! It wasn't planned at all, making it all the more exciting. They have brought the Llamas from their holiday trip to Cuzco, Peru . How nice!
Dominika in her crafting crown and Mark Jacinto focused on cutting paper close to the lines=)
Cutting, cutting!
Glueing, glueing!
For the the actual project we gathered a few materials that most people already have in their houses.
Materials:
- diaper box, shoe box or any medium sized carton box
- colored paper
- scissors
- glue
- tape
- paint( we used watercolors)
- brush
- sharpie
The project involved the kids in cutting, pasting, sealing, painting and of course, waiting. I like crafts because I believe it teaches you patience while enjoying the process of creation. I had so much fun seeing my boy concentrate hard on his task and pushing himself past his zone of comfort. He cut quite a bit of strips and helped me paste them on the roof (top) of the theater. For the sides, we chose solid colors so that he can decorate them with paint. For the top front lid, which we pulled up and taped by the sides, little Dominika helped me by stamping pink flowers on the bright orange paper;) We decided to charge $1 per show, hehe.
Ma fille intellectuelle=) Love you little girl
Doing longer types of crafts like this , made Dominika take quite a few brakes. We found her being goofy and were able to catch her in the middle of it(picture above) We were quite happy with the end result because as Mark Jacinto would say it: We did it!
Little Picasso at work=)
Mark Jacinto naming the puppets<3
Oh, hello Theodore, Clara and Perrin!
Something to remember is that the little people in our lives have a short attention span that differs greatly from the adults. By the time we were done, they didn't want a show they just wanted a quick interaction. . I think mothers develop a radar for that kind of thing, a heightened intuition for when is best for our kids to do certain types of things. I love being their mum!
If you like to craft, what types of crafts do you enjoy doing?