It’s time to take out your paints and upcylce some toilet paper tubes.  We’ll be making some unique creature finger puppets using a few materials and our imagination.

Supplies you’ll need:

• Toilet paper tubes
• Poster paint
• Construction paper
• Wiggly eyes (optional)
• Pipe cleaners
• Yarn
• Scissors
• Tape
• Glue
• Hole punch (preferably 1/8”)

Steps:

1. Paint your tubes and let dry.
2. To create the mouth for your creature, cut the tube in half but leave about a half inch intact for a hinge.  Put some tape on the inside of the hinge to reinforce it.
3. Now here’s where you can get really creative.  Let the kids paint on some detail or use construction paper and glue on arms, legs or antennas.  Don’t forget to add some wiggly eyes.
4. Steps 4 & 5 are optional.  To add a pop-out tongue, like this guy:   Cut some paper into 4” x 1 ¼” and fold it in half.  Then fold the open ends back about 5/8” toward the fold.  Round all four corners with scissors.  Fold open ends back, so that the paper is just folded in half and cut some 5/8” slits on the open end.  On the folded end, cut two ¼” slits.  Open the paper up, pushing the middle tab in and fold it back down to make the crease fold inwards.  Your final “mouth piece” will look like this:  
5. Now cut a tongue shape out from paper.  Fold the back end of the tongue ¼” and glue this fold to the middle tab of the mouth piece.  This piece can now be glued to the inside of your puppet’s mouth.
6. To get your puppet to talk, you’ll need strips of paper ½” wide.  Make a tube that fits a little larger than the base of your finger.  Tape it closed and secure it to the back of your puppet with glue or tape.  Make another tube in the same manner but this time, the size of the tip of your finger.  

Your creature finger puppet is complete!  Put together a play or ask your creature some questions.  Where is it from?  What does it like to eat?  Is it friendly?  Hopefully, it is!

Have fun!