Flannel Friday: Little Red Hen Finger Puppets

I have been thoroughly enjoying myself with my 2014 challenge to make monthly felt stories and activities for my storytimes. In fact, I'll find myself at work, flipping through picture books, and suddenly I'll see how a story might translate to a felt version. I must say, that's not something that ever just popped into my head before.

I was particularly surprised, then, when I woke up one day on my morning off thinking, "I'm going to make finger puppets today!" And, reader, that's what I did.

Since lots of my storytimes are outreach events for classrooms of up to 60 preschoolers, I chose the story of The Little Red Hen for my puppets. The story is repetitive, which I find works well with groups, and because the characters are all different animals, I knew the finger puppets would still be easily differentiable from the back of the storytime room.

I created my own freehand patterns for these puppets, although I spent about 20 minutes on Pinterest looking at what other folks have done for hen, cow, pig, and cat finger puppets--I wanted to get a sense of how I thought my puppets might best look. After hand-drawing my pattern, I used felt, embroidery floss, some small buttons, and puffy paint to get the final products.

These puppets have been making the outreach storytime rounds with me, much to the delight of many a local preschooler. Finger puppets, accomplished!

Check out this week's full Flannel Friday roundup on Lisa's blog Lisa's Libraryland.