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!!