You don't need to spend money to have an adorable puppet to play with. This activity shows you how to use a paper bag and construction paper to make a fun frog puppet. Your child will practice her fine motor skills as she cuts out all the different shapes, and when she's all done, she'll be able to use her imagination to make a puppet show for you!
What You Need:
- Pencils
- Child scissors
- Paper lunch bags
- Green, red, black, and white construction paper
- Glue
What You Do:
- First, trace out the shapes for the bulging frog eyes that your child can cut out. If she's comfortable with shapes, encourage her to help. Trace strips on the green paper that are 1.5 inches wide and 2 inches long, rounded at the bottom. Then, draw circles for the whites of the eyes on the white paper. They should be able to fit snugly at the rounded end of your green rectangles. Draw circles one size smaller on the black paper for the pupils.
- Have her cut out all the shapes you've drawn. This is a great way for her to get used to scissors, and practice her fine motor skills. Just keep a close eye on her to make sure that she's being careful and doesn't cut herself.
- Help her fold the straight end under the rounded part of the green paper strips. This will make it so the eyes are really bulging out of the frog puppet.
- Then, encourage her to glue the white circles on each eye, and then the black circles onto the white circles. Now the frog eyes are all done! They just need to be glued onto the body.
- Give her the paper lunch bag, and ask her to lay it flat with the folded bottom facing up. The flap made by the bottom fold will be the mouth.
- Show her how to glue the eyes onto the folded base of the bag.
- Now the frog needs a tongue! Help her carefully cut out a long piece of red paper, and have her to glue the red tongue inside the flap.
- The finishing touch is some decorative spots. Help her to draw and cut out small green spots to glue on the bag to decorate the frog’s body.
When the frog puppet is all done, encourage her to use it to put on a puppet show! Using the puppet will help her develop her fine motor skills, and it's a great way for her to put her imagination and creativity to work!
By Liz Thomas
Adapted with permission from "The GIANT Encyclopedia of Kindergarten Activities." Copyright 2004 by Kathy Charner (Editor), Maureen Murphy (Editor), and Jennifer Ford (Editor). Used by Permission of Gryphon House, Inc., Maryland. All Rights Reserved.
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