Parentune DIY: Kiki turns her favourite cartoons into puppets!

My children love to read books. Their favourite books are read and re-read several times over to the extent that they now remember them verbatim. So no wonder that when it’s time to say goodbye, the parting is always full of teary eyes!

That’s when we made a deal - they get to choose their most favourite book, and we make puppets. Sometimes we re-tell the same story and sometimes I encourage them to modify the story. This helps enhance their creativity and imagination. Here’s how we do it:

What you will need

1. Books (with lots of pictures)

2. Scissors

3. Glue

4. Colour pens

5. Paper

6. Straws/sticks

7. A heap of imagination

The process

1. Select the central theme of the story. You might have to do this the first few times but gradually, the children pick up and tell you which part of the story is central according to their understanding

2. Cut out the relevant pictures from the book and paste them on a thick paper (I avoid using cardboard because children cannot cut the cardboard on their own). Make cut-outs, but cut along the edges of the image/scenes

3. Stick straws, sticks, wooden skewers, etc behind the scene

4. Voila! Your puppet is ready

My children have a bunk-bed, so we often hang scarves or sheets to create our own little puppet theatre for a mini family performance.

Do you have any other DIY ideas? Please do share them with us in the comments section below, as we would love to hear from you.