Flower Puppets

[20 Minutes]

Talking flowers? This rainy day activity will keep your child busy creating and playing with these flower puppets made from paper bags.

You'll need:

• brown lunch bags • markers and crayons • glue • child safety scissors • scraps of paper, fabric, and yarn

What to do:

1. Look at flowers or pictures of flowers with your child.
2. Then invite her to make a paper bag puppet that looks like her favorite flower. Show her how to place her hand inside the bag and to use the folded bottom to serve as the puppet's mouth.
3. Encourage your child to use scraps of paper, fabric, and yarn to decorate her puppet to look like a flower.
4. Talk about how she could make petals, a stem, and leaves. Help her cut out petals if she wishes.
5. Make a flower puppet yourself.

How to use:

1. Place puppets on your hands and "talk" to each other.
2. Encourage your child to talk about where her flower likes to grow, about what happens when it rains, is sunny or windy, and what happens to her flower if it is picked.
3. Place the puppets on a garden "shelf" to be played with again on another day.

Let's Talk: Ideas to Explore Together.

• What are some differences between your bag puppet flower and a real flower?
• What kinds of flowers do you like? Where have you seen them growing?

Useful information:

While you are having fun together, your child is developing language skills, imagination, and an understanding of "same and different".