My Pet Dragon

Kiddo wants to be a princess but a knight in shiny armour will not be here without the threat of a dragon so says the ‘fairy fairy books’. So she decided that she’d have a pet dragon, wait out the day for a hapless knight to come galloping by and maybe she’d prefer to have him toasted for turning up 5 minutes late.

What you need are:

  • 1 longish cardboard box
  • 3 toilet rolls
  • 1 drinking straw
  • colour paper
  • coloring material
  • scissors/ craft knife
  • 4 pipe cleaners
  • brass fasteners
  • twine (about 1 metre)
  • sticky tape
  • glue

Instructions:

    • Find a longish box and cut it into 2 (length-wise). Flatten the parts and use only the inner blank surface for the craft. They will be the upper and lower jaws of the dragon.

Dragon puppet

    • Get kiddo to draw the dragon’s teeth along the sides of the cardboard. Then she’s to proceed to trim out the teeth.

Dragon puppet

    • Then get kiddo to choose the colours of her pet, draw out details such as scales, eyes, horns, wings etc while the following construction bits gets done.
    • Punch holes on the upper and lower jaws. The upper jaw will require 5 holes (2 nostrils, 2 cheeks, 1 neck), the lower jaw will need 2 holes (for cheeks).
    • Secure a drinking straw on the upper jaw.

Dragon puppet

    • Secure 3 pipe cleaners to the lower jaw. Twist them to make it look like the dragon’s fiery breath. Kiddo can do this too.

Dragon puppet

    • Secure a coin near the pipe cleaners. It is to act as weight for the dropping of the jaw.
    • Trim bits of the sides of the lower jaw to allow greater angle of opening.
    • Make a small slit in near the pipe cleaners on the lower jaw and pull through a piece of twine. Knot on one end and secure it at the bottom of the lower jaw.

Dragon puppet

    • Pull the other end of the twine through the straw and toilet roll. Fold in part of the toilet roll to allow more space for the jaws to open.

Dragon puppet

    • Fasten a toilet roll (it’d have a hole punched near one end) to the back of the dragon’s head with a brass fastener.

Dragon puppet

    • Fasten the sides (cheeks) of the jaws with brass fasteners.

Dragon puppet

    • Fold the teeth on the lower jaw inwards to allow the jaws to close fully.

Dragon puppet

    • Extend the neck and body of the dragon with 2 more toilet rolls. Pull the twine out fully through the end of the toilet rolls. It should be comfortably long enough for kiddo to pull and release.
    • Get kiddo to ready the parts she drew/made/cut and secure them onto the dragon with glue or sticky tape.

Dragon puppet

    • Make a little loop with a pipe cleaner at the pulling end of the twine. This allows kiddo to better manipulate the mouth movement of the dragon.

Dragon puppet

  • If time permits, make a small cardboard knight cutout…hehehehe…..


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