The Bunny & The Pebble (an Easter Story, a Kids craft, & a Free printable)

Make popsicle puppets to go along with an adorable story about a bunny, a pebble, and a broken heart. This is a craft with learning opportunities for all ages. The puppets are made out of varying sized geometric shapes and the story provides a fun way to practice reading and verbs for preschoolers and school aged children.

I have always wanted to write a children’s story and I think Bunny & The Pebble turned out pretty cute… what do you think?  My daughter LOVED everything about this craft. We keep reading the story and using our puppets over and over again. We can’t wait for Easter to perform our story for the whole family.

The reason I call it Tissue Box Stories, is because we used a tissue box as a puppet theater stage.  The tissue box is not necessary, but I think it adds a bit more magic to the puppet show. I know Ms. Tiger agrees.

Supplies:
Bunny & The Pebble printable
3 Popsicle sticks
Tissue box
Thick paper-White card stock paper or printer paper and old file folders
Markers
Glue
Googly eyes (optional)

Directions:
1.  Cut the plastic off the top of the tissue box. Then cut a square out of the bottom of the tissue box so a hand can fit inside the box.

2. If you are using white card stock print the printable onto the card stock.

If you are using printer paper and file folders print the printable onto the white paper and then glue the printable to the old file folders.  This is what we did because I never throw away things (a good trait or a bad) and I’m out of card stock.

If you are making more than one set of puppets, you can use your first set of shapes as a stencil.

3. Cut the shapes out. Then lay them down how they are going to be glued together so the child can see what they are making. This is a great time to talk about shapes and sizes. Do not glue the pieces together yet.

4.  Color the puppet pieces.

• Bunny: color any color
• Chick: color yellow
• Hearts: color red

She really likes coloring herself, but I managed to get her to color her puppets too. 🙂

5.  Glue the puppet pieces together

• Bunny: Glue ears on
• Egg: Glue the heart on
• Chick: Glue the heart on
• Bunny & Chick: Glue googly eyes on (optional)

Isn’t kid art just adorable!

6. Glue a popsicle stick to each puppet. I don’t have patience, so I glued on the popsicle sticks and added duct tape across the back so we could use the puppets before the glue dried.

7. Glue the story to the back side of your tissue box and your done.

To tell the story:
The child holds the popsicle stick inside the tissue box so that their hand is not visible. In parenthesis on the story it shows when to use each puppet. Also, the underlined words are great verbs for the puppet to move along with the story.

When we tell the story, we only hold one puppet up at a time.

Story Preview:

“Bunny was hopping along when he stumbled on a large pebble. Excuse me pebble, this is not a good place for you so why don’t you come home with me? So bunny rolled the pebble down the hill and through the grass until he reached his home. He set the pebble across the room and looked at it long and thoughtfully. Excuse me pebble, but you are much too perfect of a pebble to be so plain. So bunny picked up a brush and painted a bright red heart on the front of it. That’s better, thought bunny as he yawned and got ready for bed. Excuse me pebble, but it’s much too late and I am much too tired. So bunny hopped along and jumped right into bed.”

I hope you love the first Tissue Box Story. Follow A Little Pinch Of Perfect to make sure you don’t miss the next one.  Every Follow, Share, Like, Twitter, and Pin is appreciated.  Thanks for visiting!-Katie