Guest Author - Cheryl Lewis

With many of us experiencing heavy rainy days or snowy days we may have kids in the house with cabin fever. Their cabin fever seems to spread like any other fever and suddenly everyone in the house feels like they are climbing the walls with a desperate need to escape. The best way to deal with cabin fever is to provide fun stuff for the kids to do. Help distract them from the idea that they are cooped up in the house.

On a recent, yet again, rainy day, my oldest daughter came up with a perfect solution for her little brothers. (I have to give credit where credit is due!) She thought about the puppet shows at church and how much they enjoyed that but realized we didn't have puppets. She knew the best idea was to make their own and she shared her idea with her younger brothers. One of them suggested sock puppets and viola`! They had their rainy/snowy day solution!

They dug through the sock basket of old, missing their match, socks and each kid picked out socks. Then they scoured the house and dug through all of my craft supplies and my daughter's scrapbooking supplies to find any odds and ends that could be used on a puppet. They put everything in a pile on the kitchen table and went to work.

They used everything from little googly eyes to buttons to sequins for the eyes. They used yarn, ribbons, and markers to make a mouth. They used the old stuffing out of a toy the dog chewed up to make hair. They used all kinds of things to decorate and make their puppets.

After they made their puppets, they decided to make up their own puppet show. They took off to one of the bedrooms, made a "stage" on the bed, and went to work developing their own comedy. After a couple of hours they had it perfected and were ready for their audience.

It was great fun to watch the puppet show! I was very impressed with all the work they put into the puppets and the writing of their play. They started on their puppets right after lunch and I watched the show shortly after dinner, which gives you an idea of the amount of time this kept them occupied.

The next time you have kids climbing the walls with cabin fever, let them loose to make their own sock puppets. Let them be creative and let their imagination take them wherever they want. You might be suprised and very impressed with where they go and take you along to. Just be sure to get them to help clean up any mess they make.