Today's activity was a super simple one driven by my toddler's current fascination with ghosties (her name for them). The kids and I cut out some footprint ghosts for a game I'll share with you later this week, and my daughter loved the footprint ghosts so much that she wanted to color some and play with them!
Here's how we made these simple puppets as part of our Mom and Tot Craft Time today...
Materials Needed: white cardstock, scissors, markers, straws, and tape.
- Trace your child's foot onto white cardstock a few times and cut them out. We made probably 10 ghosties and used 5 for these puppets.
- Grab some crayons or markers and have your toddler color the ghosts!
- I added some eyes and different expressions with a black marker because I wanted to use the puppets for a story and an emotions activity.
- Tape some straws onto the back so that the ghosts are easy for toddlers to hold.
- Fly them around and have some fun!
My 4 year old thought the puppets were so cool that he wanted to join our activity. While we had Mom and Tot Craft Time, he had independent ghost drawing time... and then he joined us for our fingerplay/story 🙂
Once we were all done creating, we did this cute ghost fingerplay using our puppets by Jean Warren at Preschool Express:
FIVE LITTLE GHOSTS
Five little ghosts flying ‘cross the moor, (we made our ghosts fly around)
One went home, that left four.
Four little ghosts dancing ‘round the tree, (we made our puppets dance)
Another went home, that left three.
Three little ghosts over the houses flew, (we had the puppets fly over our heads)
Another went home, that left two.
Two little ghosts, having lots of fun, (we made the puppets act crazy)
Another went home, that left one.
One little ghost, now all alone,
He got so lonely, he flew back home.
Jean Warren
My goals for Mom and Tot Craft Time include...
- enjoying an open-ended craft activity together
- reviewing language concepts
- teaching new vocabulary words
Today's activity was less open-ended than most, but I gave my toddler free range to create and decide how she wanted to design her ghosts.
We learned several new words as we repeated and acted out the fingerplay again and again and as we talked about the different emotions conveyed on each ghost's face. I loved all of the different action words we were able to embed into this activity in addition to the directional concepts like over, under, next to, around, etc. as we made our ghosts fly!
Do you have any other favorite simple ghost crafts or activities for toddlers?
Here are a few we love:
- 3 Easy Ghost Crafts for Halloween via Rainy Day Mum
- Paint Print Ghosts via Happy Hooligans
- Faux Stained Glass Ghost via Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas
- Marshmallow Ghost Craft via No Time for Flashcards
If you are looking for some more festive ideas, I highly recommend that you check out this beautiful e-book recently released by The Artful Parent.
The Artful Year: Autumn Crafts and Recipes E-book features 78 pages of autumn leaf crafts, Halloween decorations and crafts, delicious apple and pumpkin recipes, and ideas for celebrating Thanksgiving! I am excited to be an affiliate and share this e-book with you! If you click on the image below, you can see a few sneak peaks at some of the pages in the book. The Apple Cheddar Hand Pies look delicious!
To purchase the book you can click on the image above or in my right top sidebar. It is selling for $9.99, which is a steal considering all of the great ideas you will be getting! Click here to grab your own copy right away!
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