Rainy Afternoon Activity: Quick Finger Puppets and Woodland Scene

• about a 12″ Amazon box (Yay! for a craft using recycled materials)
• about 3 sheets of white copy paper (pulled it right out of the printer)
• my 2 year old’s crayons 
• scissors 
• clear tape 
• a dowel (like the rest of this, it is completely optional) 

Instructions: 
1. Print out Go Grow Go!’s adorable woodland creatures. Color and tape ’em up. It’s ok to pause here and basque in the cuteness of these little fellas. 

2. Get a box and cut most of one of the flaps off (this will be the top). If you want to hang a sun, moon, etc., you’re going to want a little bit of flap on either side to prop the dowel against. Picture at right.

3. Draw some trees on some copy paper (8.5″ x 11″) for the back. Color and tape to the box.  

4. Draw some trees on a piece of copy paper cut in half (or thirds, depending on the sides of your box) for the sides. Color and tape to the box. 

5. Here’s the “tricky” bit, but not really if you’ve already downloaded the creatures because then you’ll be like, “Oooooooh, I get it.” 

A. From the top of the copy paper, fold it down about 3 inches.

B. Draw a sun/moon, leave some space, draw a tree, leave some space, draw a mushroom next to it, leave some space, draw anything else you want… Like a stump, maybe? It did turn out to be a valid suggestion; Elise loves the stump. 

C. Cut out your tree, mushroom, stump, etc., being sure to keep the paper together. Before you cut, be sure to leave a bit of folded paper at the top! Color and tape ’em up. For the moon and sun (or anything hanging from the dowel), I cut a single layer of the image and then cut a long piece of paper to loop over the dowel and hang it.

D. Flip it over and draw an image on the back. It can be the same image that’s on the front or it can be different. 

E. Color, or let your kid color them if they aren’t splashing away in the bath.

6. Set up your diorama. After you tape up the animals, they stay standing on their own. For the additions to your woodland scene, just turn out the bottom quarter of an inch or so on either side and they will stand up. Easy-peasy. 

This whole thing took about 30 minutes to set up and it was a very fun time or both of us. If you’d like to turn it into a learning opportunity, here are some facts about each animal. 

• Fox – A fox’s den is normally underground but they can live in cozy hollows. A baby fox is a cub, pup or kit.
• Deer – Deer can jump very high and swim well. A baby deer is called a fawn. 
• Beaver – A beaver’s front teeth never stop growing. Young beavers are called kits.
• Owl – There are about 200 different kinds, but all owls are nocturnal (active at night). A young owl is called an owlet. 
• Raccoon – Very good swimmers, the nocturnal raccoon will eat almost anything. A young raccoon is called a kit.

I talked about these little tidbits and we moved on, playing. About 10 minutes later, she then set up the following “not-turnal” scene. Yep, that’s supposed to be “nocturnal,” but I seriously was so surprised that she put the owl and the raccoon with the sun and stars. I was speechless until I finally blubbered out, “good thinking!” I know, parenting fail, but I was shocked.