Utensil Puppet Show

Materials:

• Kitchen utensils
• oven mitts

What can you do in the kitchen with your whisk, potato masher, rubber spatula, and ice-cream scoop? Why, put on a puppet show, of course!

Your child can use the table as a stage. From "backstage" (under the table, actually), the puppeteer (or group of puppeteers) selects ordinary kitchen utensils and uses them to create various characters. For instance, a whisk, potato masher, and rubber spatula might become the Three Little Pigs, and an ice-cream scoop might become the Wolf. Other child-safe utensils that can be turned into puppets include spaghetti spoons, mushroom scrubbers, and melon ballers (how about turning them into zoo animals, prehistoric creatures, or a royal family?).

If your child needs additional characters, he or she can don oven mitts and turn them into instant puppets. With hands held horizontally, your child can make the mitt-puppets talk by moving his or her thumbs up and down.

Say, has anyone seen the apple corer? A cheese grater just stopped by to visit him!

More on: Imagination Play

Excerpted from:

© 2005 by Steve and Ruth Bennett. Excerpted from 365 Unplugged Family Fun Activities with permission of its publisher, Perseus Books Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

To order this book visit perseusbooksgroup.com.