The Hand Puppet Homework / Mommy Tries To Squeeze In Some Reading.

    Part of Riley and Rowan's homework while we were away on holidays was to make a hand puppet and a play.  This seems to be grade 2 project since both Gabe and Grace also made hand puppets in grade three.  They both made sock puppets.  This year I decided to bring my "A" game and make them hand puppets.  I did this on Saturday afternoon.  As you can see from the above picture I made enough for Riley and Rowan to each make two puppets and Grace and Elly to make a puppet.  Now before you start getting the engraving on my Mother Of The Year plaque, let me share why I did this.  Sure, it would be a fun activity for everyone, and it was.  The main reason, and I am not ashamed to say this, I thought it might buy me a half hour or so to read the last book in the "Hunger Games" series. 

    When we made our first stop in Watertown NY on vacation I purchased the "Hunger Games".  It was a good price and I like to try to stay current with trends (in other words I don't like feeling left out). The kid that rang me through warned me,  "Oh that is such a good book!!!!!!  I read it in one night, I could not put it down."  He said.  I thought, oh he's just a kid.  Turns out the kid was right.  I only had an hour or so to read each night, or so I thought.  I read until 4 in the morning, or until my eyes hurt to much to read anymore. I woke up like a sleep deprived zombie every morning.   I then had to pick up the second book.  I justified it to my husband by telling him that I was actually saving us money because it would cost us so much more at home.  On the last legs of our trip I bought the third book, I was saving us so much money, I don't know why he wasn't thanking me.  I read the third book in one day!  So as you can see I became very addicted and any time that I could notch out for my habit, I had to do.  I was Jones'in for some reading, well so to speak.

    So back to the puppets.  I had lots of pink flannelette and I had fabric markers.  I cut a simple pattern out of paper and then transfered it to the cloth.  It took about 15 minutes to sew them all up on the sewing machine.  As I worked I had little cheerleaders in behind me "Almost done Mom?", "What about now?".  Did I mention that they were cheerleaders who came close to being tossed from the team?

    The kids really did enjoy making their puppets.  They even gave them voices and had them interact with each other.  Unfortunately it took them all of 5 freaking minutes.  Because of that I did what any good mother would do, I made them popcorn and put on a movie.  It made me look like I was awesome, and really nice, but really it carved me out an hour of reading, yeah me!

One of the finished products.