Thomas & Friends Finger Puppets

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Chuga, Chuga, Choo, Choo! It’s a perfect day to explore pretend play with Thomas & Friends finger puppets. I highly recommend pre-cutting everything — it’s very time-consuming. C could hardly wait to play, let alone help decorate our fun puppets! This is a parent and child activity.

Materials Needed:

Felt, assorted colors
Tacky glue
Markers
Paper
Scissors (love these)
Google eyes

What’s Next:

1. On a piece of white paper draw outlines of your favorite characters. You’re welcome to use the ones I drew, just double-click the image, drag to your desktop, and print. Or you’re welcome to draw them too.

2. Cut out the base. Fold the felt in half, place the base on top and cut. Use this to cut all your characters first in different colors. Note: I kept the left side flush to the edge of the felt to cut-out having to glue that side, not necessary, but helpful.

3. Next, you can cut the circle from the base and use it as a guide. Cut out all your faces. I doubled the fabric to quicken the process.

4. Next, I cut out all the extras — mouths, bumpers, circles, hats, mustache, noses, ties, and sweaters. You can cut out the hats, tie, and sweater from the drawing to use as a guide. I made a few copies of the drawing so I had a few guides to cut up.

5. Once everything is cut and grouped together, it’s time to glue! I used hot glue, but if you’d like your child to glue, I recommend fabric glue, not white glue. I tried it, but it didn’t stick. For the trains, glue the body first, leaving a space for your child’s finger. Next, glue the head, than the red bumper, than extra pieces.

6. Our last Thomas & Friends trains —

7. Next, let’s do Sir Topham Hatt and Mr. Conductor.

8. Gather all your cut-outs. I recommend using pale pink for the face. I didn’t have pale pink felt so I used pink construction paper over the white face. Glue the body leaving space for your child’s finger. I recommend placing the sweater, tie, and head on, but not gluing it until you have it set. Otherwise you’ll glue the sweater down and the tie needs to go underneath it. Mr Conductor —

9. Repeat the same steps for Sir Topham Hatt. He is the most complex. I recommend placing all the layers on first, then glue from the bottom layer up. So, tie, then yellow sweater, then black sweater, then head.