Lately I’ve been craving doing a puppet project. Maybe it’s because my preschooler watches a bit of Sesame Street and it brings me back to my childhood of watching the Muppets, Fraggle Rock or any other wonderful, magical things Jim Henson could think up. He was always, and still is, such an idol of mine. So I went in search of how to build some puppets with the after school art group. I came across this wonderful video on Iowa Public Radio of Jim Henson demonstrating different types of puppets that can be made.
Jim Henson on Making Muppets 1969
I took his wooden spoon puppet idea and made it my own and it was a super fun beginning puppet project!
My supply list consisted of:
Basically, what you can imagine you can create. We used all sorts of materials to ‘accessorize’ our puppets. I found this interesting fur material at Michaels that we used as hair and some used as beards.
To create the puppets shirt first fold the felt in half and cut a tiny slit in the middle. Slide the bottom of the spoon into the opening in the felt and take a rubber band and wrap it around the hole in the felt to secure it to the spoon. (I took some boa material and covered the rubber band). For the arms, grab a tiny piece of material about where you want the hand to be and wrap another rubber band around that and do the same on the other side to make hands. You can then get creative and cut out little hand shapes or use these great foam stickers they have in hand shapes. Then decorate! Create a face by adding googly eyes, pom poms for a nose, draw in a mouth, add hair, the possibilities are limitless! Then take your puppet for a stroll or better yet a show!
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