Plastic Bottle Fish Puppet

Creating puppets and a theater with your child provides you with endless opportunities to engage in imaginative play together. Children can retell favorite stories, create their own stories, strengthen their self confidence and practice social skills.

Materials

Plastic bottle

Stapler

School glue

Washable paint

Glitter (optional)

Tissue paper

Popsicle stick

Marker

Goggly eyes

Newspaper

Adult and child activity

1. Pick one or several empty transparent plastic bottles. If you are making several puppets using bottles of different sizes will allow you to compare them. You can encourage your child to sort the bottles by size, shape, and color. Sorting encourages critical thinking and strengthens early math skills. Are there other items around the house they can sort or match? Perhaps socks, food storage containers, or playing cards. Talk about what is the largest, smallest, widest, and tallest. Sort items by size, shape, and color. Encourage your child to come up with their own way to sort items.

2. Remove the labels, place the cap in a SAFE high place for later, wash with soapy water and let completely air dry. As you are cleaning the bottle out together, you can ask questions about how much water the bottle holds the bottles shape, color, and texture, what sound it makes when you pour the water out or which part of the bottle is the widest or the narrowest.

3. Lay newspaper down on space where your painted bottle can dry (away from curious hands). Find your bottle cap and gather paint. The really fun part! Allow your child to drip one or several colors of paint and glitter (optional) into the bottle. Put the cap tightly on the bottle and allow your child to shake the bottle.

Together discuss your observations about the shaken paint inside the bottle including color mixing, shape of drips, shape of unpainted plastic, and how the paint moves when they shake it fast then slow.

4. Remove the cap (throw cap away) and prop bottles opening down on newspaper where it can be undisturbed for a day or two to dry completely.

Adults do this part

5. Once your bottle has dried completely, use scissors to cut the bottom off the bottle.

6. Then cut two triangles out, one on each side, of the painted bottle to make a tail shape (save the triangles).

7. Squeeze the center of the bottle so it lays flat and place one cut triangle on each side and staple together. You may want to put a small piece of masking tape over staple prongs for safety.

8. Cut a small hole in bottom of bottle to slide Popsicle stick inside.

Adult and child activity

Optional: At this point you can allow gluing tissue paper to the bottle. You can discuss how a fish has hundreds of scales, tail, fins, and gills. This is a great time to read a book about fish or the ocean. We read "Rainbow Fish," "Fish Eyes," and "Commotion in the Ocean." "Rainbow Fish" reinforces the importance of sharing in friendship. Sharing is a hard concept for young children to understand so stories about this and other social skills help children begin to get a grasp on it. At our house we play games, or practice sharing. My little girl laughs when I pretend I don't want to share, she knows I am joking because I use a silly voice, and she loves to remind me. "Fish Eyes" helps strength counting skills. "Commotion in the Ocean" is a fun rhyming book.

9. Allow child to decide where to place the eyes. Young children may not add them in the correct anatomical position but this is OK. Remember it is the thinking process not the product that is important and the time you spend together. You can allow them to glue on eyes or draw eyes on.

10. Your puppet is complete! Enjoy! You can make more puppets using leftover family pictures cut and glued to sticks or mate-less mittens left over from last winter. We used the leftover bottom of the bottles and glued tissue paper dangling down to make jellyfish.

Puppets are a great way to help children deal with emotions or practice skills. They love to help a mischievous puppet make a good choice, a silly puppet count, sing or help retell a familiar nursery rhyme.

Puppet theater material

Box

Roll of paper or paint

Hobby knife or scissors

1. Repurpose an empty large cardboard by turning it into a puppet theater.

2. Simply paint or cover the box with paper. I painted our large box white so my children could decorate it with crayons.

3. Using a ruler draw the rectangular opening, in the top center, for your stage.

4. Cut the opening.

5. Enjoy your theater!

Laura Elson is a Westerly-based artist, certified preschool teacher, and mom. Her enrichment column for parents of young children, 'Wonder Years' appears online the second Monday of each month.