Get crafty with the DUCK Lab! Each Friday, trained research assistants from the UNCG Psychology Department’s DUCK Lab will guide at-home crafts for children ages 3 to 12. Parents can join too to learn fun facts about crafts that foster age-appropriate skills or learn about the DUCK Lab’s nonprofit child development research projects.
This Friday, the DUCK Lab invites all preschool friends to join Kimmy and make a silly caramel apple puppet! Follow along as Kimmy takes you through each step and make this stick puppet just in time for the start of fall!
Parents, did you know?
This type of craft helps young children develop rule-following skills! Read on below for more info. about the connection between craft activities and age-appropriate developmental milestones.
We also invite you to check out our child development research opportunities, which are now modified for the virtual world! Please click here to learn more or sign up to participate with us.
Here’s what you’ll need to get started:
Supplies:
Red (or green) and brown construction paper
Markers
Popsicle stick (or straw)
Glue or glue dots
Scissors
Optional: googly eyes, brown yarn
Directions:
Cut an apple shape out of the red construction paper.
Cut a “half apple” shape out of the brown construction paper to cover the bottom half of the red apple cut out. This will be the caramel cut out.
Glue the caramel cut out to the bottom of the apple cut out.
Attach googly eyes or use markers to make a silly face on the top half of the apple. Add any expression you like to make the caramel apple’s face.
Glue the popsicle stick to the back of the apple.
The DUCK Lab: Caramel Apple Puppet
Relation to Developmental Science:
This craft allows children to practice manipulating objects as they use scissors to cut different shapes or use glue to assemble the pieces of this caramel apple puppet. This step-by-step assembly can also help young children practice simple rule-following to complete a task. The addition of a facial expression or other features allows children to engage in creativity and parents can use this decoration time to talk to their children about the change of seasons or even start a child-friendly conversation about nutrition.
Great for children in early childhood, but fun for kids in middle childhood too!
The DUCK Lab is a partner in the nonprofit Child Development Research Center in the Department of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. They conduct studies of social and cognitive development with 2- to 12- year-olds. Families who participate in their research studies are volunteers in the Greensboro community who generously offer their time to help support research and training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students.