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Parental guidance is advised
Difficulty: ***
Time to prepare: **
Clean up: **
Activity time: 1 hour or more
Help your child make these colourful and fun peg puppets. Decorating them will help aid his hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills, while challenging his creativity. Pressing the pegs open will exercise the many muscles in his hands, preparing him for tasks like writing, fastening buttons, using a pair of scissors and more advanced tasks in the future.
- Buy cut-out figures and shapes, or cut out your own using thick cardboard. Make sure they are big enough for your child to work with.
- Paste the cut-outs onto wooden pegs and help your child decorate them with paint and felt-tip pens. You can also include small pieces of felt and fabric.
- Give each of the pegs a name and hang them on a line in his room.
- You can use the pegs to display photos or artwork, or use them as bookmarks, or attach a small magnet (found at craft stores) to the back to make a fridge magnet. These pegs also make cute homemade gifts.
TIPS
Buy wooden cut-outs such as these at art stores. They are quite affordable and it’s easier than making your own.
We used acrylic paints for our pegs. You can find affordable acrylic paints for small children at most art stores.
