Did you know there are lots of printable finger puppets available from Activity Village? Rita and her children try some out in this guest blog post.
Finger Puppet Fun
By Rita
I was searching through the printables section on Activity Village a little while ago and came across the finger puppets. My attention was caught, and I filed them away in my mind to do one day.
The puppets are really cute, and there are a number of options, from animals to nativity figures to soccer players. In the end, I couldn't choose between the African animals and the Minibeasts, so I printed them both out.
African animal finger puppets
After printing them, I got my kids to do the hard work gave my kids some fine motor practice and asked them to cut out the puppets. My 9 and 11 year olds managed this well, but my 6 year old found the fiddly bits a bit frustrating, and after one of the beetles lost a leg and an antennae, I took over. If you have young kids, you might need to cut them out yourself.
Careful cutting
Slightly fiddly! Will the minibeast lose his antennae?
While they were cutting out the puppets, they were discussing how to use them. It was lovely to listen to their creativity. They were planning a serial puppet show called The Snail Trail Gang. I hope they do all the episodes they were plotting because they sounded very entertaining!
A beautiful butterfly in the garden
I was planning to get out our puppet theatre, but the weather was so lovely that we decided to take the minibeasts out into the garden and play with them there. The butterfly found some beautiful blossoms to visit, and our apple tree was invaded by a slug and a worm.
Leave those apples alone!
Munch munch!
We decided to try something different with the African animals and instead of putting the loops on them for our fingers, we taped skewers to the back to hold. Then we took them out to the back lawn savannah to play with.
The cheetah and the hippo chatted, unaware that there was a lion creeping up behind them...
Be careful! There's a lion creeping up on you ...
But it turned out to be a friendly lion, which was just as well.
Finger puppet friends in the sun!
We had a lot of fun with these, and I know that they will be used again and again. The pictures are extremely cute. There are lots of different ways that you could use them. You could print them out on labels to make adorable stickers, or stick them on the walls as part of a garden or savannah theme. They would be super fun as cupcake toppers if you printed them out half size. You could laminate them and hide them around the garden for a treasure hunt. There are so many possibilities!
If you don't have a puppet theatre, try making one out of a box. The African animals have a link to a backdrop that you can use, and the garden flowers playdough mat would make a great backdrop for the minibeasts. You could cut the bottom out of the box so that you can stick your hands in, or you could put slits in the side and put the puppets on skewers like we did.
I am looking forward to lots of creative puppet play this summer on hot afternoons when we come inside to escape the sun. Or the rain. It is Britain, after all.
This is a guest post from Rita. Rita is a home educating mother of four girls, aged 10, 8, 6, and 2. She blogs at Chronicles of a Disorganised Homeschooler, where she shares her attempts to at least pretend to be organised enough to manage life, and the fun that she and her family has along the way.
You can find a list of all our guest posts, here.
