Making puppets for a Goodnight Gorilla craft is a wonderful way to introduce learning through play for favorite stories.
Goodnight Gorilla is written by Peggy Rathmann and tells the story of a zookeeper who says goodnight to the animals in his care before going to bed.
He makes his way through the gorillas, giraffes, elephants, lions, and even an armadillo but a mischievous gorilla grabs the keys and decides to play a trick on the zookeeper.
The gorilla quietly follows the zookeeper, unlocking the cages of the other animals and letting them out.
Kids just think this is so hilarious and love being part of the joke.
GOODNIGHT GORILLA BOOK
Good Night Gorilla
'Good night, Gorilla', says the night watchman as he finishes his rounds at the zoo. But Gorilla has other ideas, deftly pick-pocketing the watchman's keys and letting himself, Elephant, Lion, Hyena, Giraffe and Armadillo out of his cage. The watchman makes his way home and into bed, unaware that the zoo has followed him home!
The zookeeper makes his way home and crawls into bed only for his wife to find that all the animals followed him home.
So she leads them all back and puts them all away, except for one.
HOW TO USE THE STORY TIME PUPPETS
These fun little craft stick puppets that go with a book allow your child to recreate the story or make a new one.
Use them for new vocabulary and language skills, develop fine motor skills as they help make the puppets, and foster their imagination.
From a mom’s point of view, it is fun trying to recreate their favorite characters into a learning toy with simple drawings.
We are going to turn Good Night Gorilla and some of its most memorable characters into puppets using craft sticks and markers or crayons.
MORE GOODNIGHT GORILLA CRAFT IDEAS
- Make a Simple and Fun Wildlife Craft Mountain Gorilla Layered Art Project to take a simple storybook to the next level of learning.
- These Story Blocks- Goodnight Gorilla are another great way to retell this favorite story while they rearrange and build.
- Yet another way to add a level of learning to a simple story book is the Alphabet Letter G is for Gorilla Fun Paper Plate Preschool Mask which is full of gorilla themed learning ideas.
- Goodnight Gorilla Handprint Zoo Craft
- Grab this free Goodnight Gorilla Zoo Animal Patterns Printable to teach your preschooler patterning and fine motor skills as they cut and paste.
- Here is a cute idea for making shoebox cages for zoo animals along with matching keys that will lead to hours of dramatic play.
- This craft, Zoobook Activity: Matching Eyes is fun and
- Encourage your child to get creative with LEGO or Duplo and recreate Goodnight, Gorilla: Building the Story with Lego.
If you want to make it more than just a simple craft you can include some simple facts and look at pictures of the animals in the story.
Wildlife Anatomy is a wonderful reference for a variety of ages and includes gorilla, lion, and elephant.
Think about taking a trip to a local zoo to see if you can find all the animals mentioned in the story.
And as well as a zookeeper or two to make it come even more alive for your child.
It will be a fun scavenger hunt mixed in with a simple science activity. It is a great way to bond with your child.
Grab a container of zoo animals and let your child build their own zoo with LEGO, wood blocks, pipe cleaners, or sticks gathered from the yard.
HOW TO MAKE GOODNIGHT GORILLA CRAFT PUPPETS
You will need:
- Jumbo craft sticks
- Cardstock
- A pencil with eraser
- Markers, crayons, or colored pencils
First, the illustrations in Goodnight Gorilla are very simple.
And that makes them easy to recreate with pencil and a little color.
Draw very simple outlines in pencil of the zookeeper and the animals you wish to include on thick cardstock.
If you do just their heads it is easier than drawing the entire body if you are intimidated by drawing.
Next, make your drawings pop by coloring them in, keep it simple with just a couple colors.
Add details like hair, eyes, etc… to give your drawings a little depth.
And if you outline everything in black they really pop.
Cut each one out of the cardstock.
Use a glue stick to attach them to the back of the craft stick.
Store in a cup or sandwich bag when not in use.
If you want to make them more durable for longer play, laminate them before gluing them to the craft sticks.
You can do this for whatever your toddler or preschoolers favorite books are and get quite a fun collection going.
Picture a set of Goodnight Moon, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and more on their bookshelves promoting imagination and literacy skills.
