Rainy Day Puppet Show

Who knew how easy it was to turn an old air conditioner box into a Puppet Theater!

It has been raining all week at our house and we are definitely starting to get cabin fever. Maddie has been rather obsessed with puppets ever since my mom bought her a tiny little finger puppet in Washington DC and along with the empty air conditioner boxes in the office our house has been in puppet production mode all day.

At Kiz Club you can download and print nine different sets of story props including The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Whose Baby Am I? and Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See. You can print in either color or black and white. Maddie decided we should print out Five Little Monkeys Jumping On The Bed for today's puppet show. We opted for black and white today so Maddie could color her puppets while I constructed the puppet theater.


I am pretty impressed with myself for not actually cutting up any of the cardboard box, I managed to just fold a few flaps and secure them with packing tape (much easier than cutting through heavy duty cardboard!). In addition I found some scrap fabric that has been laying around the house for years(!) to make some cute little curtains that I tied back with ribbon. I also cut stars out of scrap paper to decorate the box a bit.


When Maddie was finished coloring her puppets I cut them out and covered them with contact paper. I also glued (and taped!) Popsicle sticks to the puppets. For the bed I glued (and taped) small binder clips to the back so that she could clip the bed to the front of the puppet theater. Velcro and magnets would also work nicely for this part.


We let everything dry during lunch time and then it was time for the show! Maddie only lasted so long with the monkeys so she is currently coloring the pages to make The Very Hungry Caterpillar puppets. I guess we are having an encore performance this evening when daddy gets home!