DIY Story telling finger puppets

Winston loves listening to ‘The Troll’ by Julia Donaldson in the car after discovering it through one of his cousins. We have 10 Julia Donaldson audio CDs but ‘The Troll’ is the only one he ever asks for. He loves the voices, the songs and of course – the pirates. He knows the whole thing almost word for word and I actually don’t mind listening to it over and over again. A few days ago I received an amazing package full of materials to test out Sykes Cottages craft tutorials, and set to work creating our own set of story telling finger puppets.

We don’t own ‘The Troll’ book (I’ve since ordered it), so I thought it would be a good idea for us to make the puppets and get to know the characters. I was able to search online and find out what the characters looked like – apart from the rabbit, so hopefully it’s white! Win can’t understand why one of the pirates has a foot and a chopped off foot – I couldn’t seem to explain a peg leg adequately.

We had so much fun making them. Ru naps in the afternoon and this is when Winston and I get on with our craft projects – our finger puppets took two afternoons.

We made puppets for all characters that have dialogue (eight in total) and I was so pleased with how they turned out. My favourite is the troll – Win was adamant the number of teeth on him had to be exactly right.

The troll

The pirates

The animals

I was also sent a little puppet show and have been trying to teach Winston how it works. He sits on a little stool behind a table and listens to the CD, trying to get the right puppet on his finger in time. It’s a very new way of playing for him and I’m interested to see if he takes to it. He seemed to be enjoying himself for the half an hour or so we were doing it. I used to love doing puppet shows with my brother and sister and would welcome getting the chance to make a bigger ‘theatre’.

I was also sent bits to make soya candles so I’ll be sharing the results of that very soon.

It’s all a bit too cute!

E xx