Malaysia crafts: Proboscis Monkey puppet

Time for some crafts inspired by the animals of Malaysian Borneo! One of the biggest highlights was seeing a semi-wild orangutan in the wild, and there's a great paper craft for older kids on this site.

But we chose to focus on our other favorite Bornean primate - the Proboscis Monkey. Mostly because I love hearing the various ways The Whirl Girl says "proboscis." And because Proboscis Monkeys are found only in Borneo and we were lucky enough to see them swinging through the trees of Bako National Park.

Do you know what distinguishes the Proboscis Monkey from their tree-swinging friends? Their BIG noses!

photo from National Geographic

We followed the Monkey Puppet template from the DLTK blog, adding a couple of embellishments of our own, namely a BIG nose.

Supplies:

• print out of template
• brown and gray crayons
• glue stick
• string
• masking tape
  
• cardboard (we used two cereal boxes and they worked great)
• 1-2 straws
  
• scissors
• glue-on eyes (optional)
• colorful cotton balls (optional)
  
• raffia (optional)
  

Step One: Color the monkey parts.

As you can see, coloring precision is NOT necessary. The Whirl Girl did a mix of all different shades of brown and gray. (It looks enough like a monkey once the pieces are cut out).

Step Two: Cut out the pieces (with an inch or two on each side) and glue to the cardboard.

Step Three: After the glue is dry, cut out the monkey parts (with the cardboard).

Step Four: Add embellishments. We added some glue-on eyes...

...brown cotton balls...

and a BIG raffia nose.

Step Five: Attach the pieces to each other. Turn them upside down to lay it out. Use a cut straw to tape the legs, tail and one arm to the body. Use string to attach the remaining arm.

Step Six: Tape a long piece of string to the body and another to the arm that is attached with string. Make a circle/bracelet at the end of the string that isn't attached to the monkey.

And you're done!

This craft was a huge hit with The Whirl Girl, especially since it could do more than hang on the refrigerator. It's a new toy! She showed the Proboscis Monkey all around the house, made it dance, and gave it a lovely spot to hang in her room.