Make a Funny Play With These Wooden Puppet Characters
We really need more and more things that inspire our children's imaginations. Make a few of these wooden spoon characters and then your child can make a funny story with them all in it.
Wooden spoons can be decorated in a million different ways to create all sort of characters. Goodies and baddies are all fun. And even more amusing when little wooden spoon characters start bumping heads, dancing and singing.
What We Need To Make Wooden Spoon Puppets
- Wooden spoons
- Black pen
- Scissors
- String or wool
- Glue
- 30cm dinner plate to draw around
- Fabric, felt and interesting papers for decorating
How We Start Making Wooden Spoon Puppets
First we can use a fine black felt tip pen and draw some funny faces on the wooden spoons. Draw dots for eyes or small curves for closed eyes. Draw a smile or a straight line or wobbly mouth depending on who your character is.
Don't worry about making mistakes. The funniest characters are often those that look silliest.
Add more face details if you like, but remember, you can always add more later.
Our Wooden Spoon Puppet Needs Some Hair
Let's make some plaited hair for our first character. Cut six lengths of string or wool. Each length should be around 30cms long. Now cut two more pieces at 8cms long.
Bunch all the long pieces together. Tie the two shorter pieces around the centre of the longer bunch and tie in a knot. This will be a fringe, so trim the ends to the same length.
For a boy puppet you can just cut a bunch of shorter hairs. But remember, this is your puppet and you can make them however you want.
Glue the centre of the hair to the very top of the wooden spoon.
Wooden Spoon Puppet Dressing Up Time
Now we can use the 30cm plate as a template. Place the plate on your piece of fabric and draw around the edge with a black pen.
Cut the fabric shape out with pinking shears. Pinking shears leave an interesting zig-zag edge. This looks great but also stops the fabric from fraying.
Cut the circle in half and wrap it around the neck of the wooden spoon. Glue in place and hold. Decorate the fabric further with any details you like. Let your imagination go wild. Maybe add ribbons and buttons.
Finish Off Our Wooden Spoon Puppet
Our first puppet is nearly finished. Finish the wooden spoon puppet but plaiting her hair and tying the ends with ribbons.
Congratulations we have a new friend.
Think about what other puppets you want to make and what they might look like. Maybe make them look similar like they are friends. Or maybe they are all completely different.
Have fun making and decorating your puppets. Cut a hole in the side of a large cardboard box, place it on a table as a fun little theatre.
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