Puppets for a puppet show.

So, my father in law is AMAZING and he made this puppet theater about 12-13 yrs ago.  Randomly, I had started doing puppet show wednedays with my daughter a few months ago.  If you want to know more about what I am doing in our preschool homeschooling, you can check out my new blog learningplaydatewithmom.blogspot.com  I am pretty excited about our Museum Friday coming up this week.  However, that is off the topic here.  When my husbands grandpa offered us the puppet theater, I was stoked.  Serioulsy.  I didn't even know it existed.  I feel like my Father-in-law has presented me with the most amazing Christmas gift for years to come.  Each week Madalynn makes puppets from pages she has colored.  She cuts out images, tapes on a popsicle stick and the show goes on.

Madalynn with our finished heap of puppets.
Hers are the chickens on popsicle sticks.
Mine are the felt animal puppets.  

Picture of the puppet theater.  Description below.  

Two years ago I bought some puppet kits from Hobby Lobby to make Madalynn some puppets for Christmas.  I got the pieces glued on before I realized that I should have sewed the felt first.  I couldn't use my machine without gumming it up.  I got super frustrated and threw them to the bottom of a pile.  When I cleaned out our storage room a few weeks ago, I found them and put them in a bag.  We had the puppet theater by then and I knew that I needed to get them out and finish them.  Well, I pulled them out tonight and it became a family affair.  I tried unsucessfully to sew them with my machine again.  Russ got out the needle and thread and tried to sew them too.  Eventually we decided to just hot glue them.  They were super cheap and I don't care if the kids destroy them.  I just don't want to loose small pieces around the house.  We will see what happens.  I let Remington watch me while I was using the hot glue gun.  I let Madalynn hold the heat gun to help me glue.  Crafting projects are so fun when they become a family affair.

Madalynn wanted to do a puppet show when we got home today.  Oh, how I love our theater.  The turrets have two windwos to puppet through.  There are six backgrounds currently.  However I have some fabric I am planning on using to make a few new ones.  They are hung pull curtain rods.  The theater is massive and made of steel.  It take the space of our old bookshelves and computer desk.  There is plenty of room for a few adults to sit behind.  Every kids that has come over in the past 6 weeks since we got it has loved it.

I remembered that I wanted to look up some tutorials about how to make a stuff animal into a puppet.  We have like 50 stuffed animals that the kids never touch.  Well I found this tutorial and it is on the list of things to do this next week.  Madalynn sat in my lap and watched the youtube videos I found.  I can't wait to do some the week of Thanksgiving when I am off work.

My daughter loves creating things.   When I asked her what new puppets she wanted to make today, we end up googling chickens and she picked out a bunch of pictures to use.  She wanted to show the life of a chicken from egg, birth, to adult.  I love her concentration face.

We did do a puppet show before bed tonight.  Russ was doing dishes while listening so we didn't get any pictures, but it was fun.

Hope you enjoyed.