Tuesday's Treat - Cereal Box Puppet Theatre

Each week Momondealz bring you a craft that can be done with your children that is fun, educational, and frugal! Since school is out for the summer, you may want to check out my previous crafts HERE to give you other ideas that will keep your child busy and learning for hours! This week’s craft is one that once created, can supply fun all summer! There are a gazillion craft ideas for cereal boxes, but this is one of my favorites!

Cereal Box Puppet Theatre

Materials:
Empty Cereal Box (use coupons HERE to score some cheap ones!)
Scissors
Paint, Construction Paper 9 Inch By 12 Inch,or Wrapping Paper
Scrap Fabric or Construction Paper
Craftsticks or Straws
Glue

Directions:
1. Cut off the top of the cereal box.
2. Paint the box with the color of your choice and allow to dry. If you don’t want to purchase paint, you can also cover the box with wrapping paper or construction paper.

3. Cut a hole in the box that will be your “stage”. Be sure to leave enough space on the sides to ensure the box remains sturdy.

4. Attach your “curtain” to the box. This can be made of construction paper or scrap fabric. We have a bucket of scrap fabric in the garage that I use for dusting so we just used some of this for ours.
5. Color and design your puppets. Then attach them to either popsicle sticks or straws.
6. Have fun perfoming plays all summer!

Educational adaptations:
–Language Arts:
1. Create puppets that represent nursery rhyme characters. Practice nursery rhymes using the puppets. The moon above is for “Hey Diddle Diddle” practice. *Note* Research has shown that children who know at least 3-5 nursery rhymes when entering kindergarten are higher achieving readers in 5th grade!
2. Create puppets that represent characters in your child’s favorite book. Retell the book using the puppets. Be sure to include the beginning, middle, and end of the story.
3. Have your child write the directions (or dictate to you and you can write them) for making the theatre. Being able to write down steps in a process is a huge skill in school.
–Math:
1. Discuss the shapes involved in this craft. Help your child identify that the box front is rectangle, the actual box is a rectangular prism, the “stage” hole is a square, etc.
2. Use a ruler to measure the box length and width and determining the exact center to cut the hole for the “stage”. Be sure to use terms such as length and width when doing this.
-Science:
1. Modify your theatre to make it into a habitat. Brainstorm with your child the different animals they would like for puppets (or maybe you have small stuffed animals laying around that can substitute as puppets) and then decorate your box according to the type of habitat those animals would be found. For example maybe your child loves farm animals-Paint your cereal box red with vertical stripes to represent a barn and make farm animal puppets.
-Social Studies:
1. Citizenship: Perhaps your children are not getting along or are exhibiting a trait (i.e. throwing things) you don’t like. Create a play teaching that this trait is wrong. Plays are an excellent way to show proper behavior and children are much more susceptible to learning this way as opposed to yelling.