After spotting the fabulous upside down goldfish ghost Marissa designed for her literary exhibit, I vowed I would find a way to replicate it as a story time project. And behold! A floating paper plate goldfish ghost marionette!
We read Goldfish Ghost, written by Lemony Snicket, and illustrated by Lisa Brown (Roaring Brook Press, 2017). Goldfish Ghost, who comes into being floating on top of his fishbowl, floats out the window to seek company. But the world is vast, loud, and bustling. Goldfish Ghost is disheartened to find no company. Until he meets the ghost of the lighthouse keeper. Now the two are the best of friends, settled in quietly together, by the lighthouse light.
You’ll need:
- 2 paper plates
- White construction paper
- String or clear elastic beading cord
- 1 drinking straw
- Scissors and tape for construction
- Black markers for decorating
To make the marionette, trim the outside perimeters off 2 paper plates. Use marker to draw eyes, a mouth, and scales on the plates.Next, tape a white construction paper tail and fins to the inside of 1 plate.
In the book, Goldfish Ghost floats upside down, so tape a length of string or elastic beading cord to the belly of the fish. Then tape the 2 plates together. Knot the string around a drinking straw, and your fabulous marionette is complete!
Sneakers, boots, bunny slippers, and galoshes. When you have 100 legs, you’re going to need a LOT of shoes. Good thing we have just the shoe store for you and your centipede marionette!
Katie came up with fantastic, easy method for stringing the marionette. Tie a 4 ft string to the end of a wooden dowel. Thread the string through the first tube, then loop it up and around the wooden dowel. Repeat this threading and looping through the second and third tubes, then tie the end of the string around the back end of the wooden dowel. Wrap the ends of the dowel in masking tape so the string doesn’t slide off. You can see the string loops in the photo below:
Last but not least, your centipede’s face. You don’t want to put the face on BEFORE you thread the marionette string, because the pom-pom will be blocking the end of the tube! the face is a jumbo pom-pom (which we hot glued in place), eye stickers, a self-adhesive foam smile, and twisteez wire antennae.
The kids walked over with their centipedes, and I slid the shoe templates through the front door of the shop.
The shoes were then colored, cut, and taped the centipede’s legs. Admittedly, this marionette can be a little floppy while it’s getting its shoes attached. Which brings me to this clever technique a parent came up with:
Tape the dowel to the table, and you are free to attach the shoes on a dangling marionette with minimal flopping. ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!
The giraffe has a toilet paper tube body, and a 2″ long toilet paper tube head. Both of the tubes are wrapped with yellow construction paper. We used extra yellow construction paper to create the ears, antlers, and tail. Then we used markers to add the giraffe’s spots, mouth, and nostrils. We used 
The second hole is positioned underneath the first, on the opposite side of the tube.
If my description seems a little confusing, this next image should clear things up. Here’s the finished marionette head with the string running through the 2 holes you punched in the head tube.
Next, punch a hole at each end of the top of the body tube:
Then turn the tube over and punch 4 holes in the bottom. As you have probably guessed, these 4 holes are where the marionette’s legs attach in the next step.
To make the giraffe’s legs, thread a piece of string through a foam bead. Secure the string to the bottom of the foam bead with tape. Cut a drinking straw in half, then slide the 2 pieces down the string towards the foam bead. Thread the loose end of the string into the leg hole you punched in the body tube. Secure the string inside the tube with tape. Repeat these steps with the 3 remaining legs.
The lower part of the your puppet is done, now for the upper part! The puppet is attached to its drinking straw control stick by two strings. The first string runs from the control stick to the giraffe’s rear end, where it is secured inside the tube with tape. The second string runs through the head, the neck, and then attaches to the body tube with tape. The neck is a drinking straw cut into 3 pieces. We used black masking tape to secure the string to the control stick too.
Your marionette is done! We put on some tunes and invited kids to dance their giraffe friends. This resulted in some bouncy, twisty, bendy, jumpy dance moves, as well as a few bars of an original song we’re calling “Dancing, Dancing, Dance-a-lee-Dance!”