Sock puppet – advanced

Experimenting with puppets allows children to express all kinds of alter egos; all within the safe haven of imaginative play. Making your own sock puppets is a fun craft activity that can result in hours of creative play with the puppet itself.

What you need:

• A pair of socks
• A small piece of cardboard about the size of your hand
• Craft glue
• Needle and thread
• 2 x buttons
• Some wool

Number of players:
1+

Activity:

Put the sock on your hand so that your fingers and thumb are in the toe and the back of your wrist is in the heel.

To make the mouth, cut a slit in the sock in the spot between your thumb and fingers. You will now have a gaping hole in your sock.

Extend your fingers and thumb to widen the mouth: take note of how big the hole is and then cut an oval out of the cardboard to match the size- about 10cm long and 5cm across.

Lay the second sock flat and trace around the cardboard oval to make a second matching oval out of the sock material.

Stick the cloth oval to the cardboard oval with craft glue.

Wait for the glue to dry completely.

Fold the oval in half lengthways and use your needle and thread to sew the folded oval into the mouth hole of your puppet. Now you have a proper talking puppet!

Use the needle and thread to sew on two buttons for eyes.

Cut the wool to size for the sort of hair-do you want, gather it together in the centre and wind a piece of wool a few times around to keep it all together in one hair-do.

Glue the hair onto the sock using the centre part to anchor it, then when the glue is dry, make it more secure by sewing it to the sock in the same place.  You can express yourself with hair-dos: plaits, long straight hair, pigtails, a ponytail,  a bald man with a moustache.

Notes:

• For a simpler beginner version, try our Simple sock puppet instructions first.