Where the Wild Things Are

In honor of Halloween, I present you with WILD THINGS!! My class adored making these puppets. They were so enthralled that it was almost silent for once! In a room made for 20, but stuffed with 27 kindies, that is a rare moment. One of my students commented “It’s quiet in here! I can hear myself think for once! Let’s keep this up!” We read the book for a week and then as a final project, made the puppets. As they were cutting, drawing and creating sharp teeth and claws, some of them whispered, “They roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws” (Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak, 1964).

These are easy to make, not too expensive and so fun! All you need is brown paper bags, googly eyes (or students can draw them or make them out of construction paper), an assortment of colored construction paper, cotton, fur (optional), and any other random craft materials that could be used to make wild things! Like craft sticks, felt, or paint! We used markers and lots of glue. I modeled for my kids an option of how to make one and a few kids copied mine exactly, but most of them added in their own creativity or completely made their own type of monster! These were so fun; I’ll definitely make them again with my class next year. Happy Halloween!!