Travis needed an art project for the first day of “home school”, so I turned to Highlights magazine for inspiration. It turned out the pompom puppets we tackled were a bit advanced for a kindergartner, but we sure got silly and had fun making them.

The method looked simple enough: Wind colorful yarn around the tines of a fork to make the body of a pompom.

Tie with a small piece of yarn in the center, making sure to tightly double-knot, then slide off the fork and snip the loops on either end so you have the frills of a pompom.

This sounded good in theory! But we quickly found out that the fork resulted in very small pom poms and they unraveled into pieces when we tried to cut the loops. Thinking quickly, we wound around mommy’s fingers instead! This resulted in workable pompoms.

To turn them into puppets, wrap colored felt around your child’s finger until it is the right size, then use glue to secure.

Travis helped pick out decorations for his silly creatures, but once again the project was a bit hard for small hands. I jumped in with a little hot glue to secure pipe cleaner antennae, wiggle eyes, and button decor according to his wishes.

What silly creatures!

Travis loved waving them on his fingers. Soon they even had little space pods to travel around in.

Plus he even had fun playing with the extra yarn from our failed attempts, in what turned into a very creative game. So these turned out to be great for imaginative play, even if the crafting was too advanced for him.