Our makeshift puppet theatre got LOTs of play and it was {well past} time to switch things up in our little Ikea SKYLTA Market Stand. Because we’re amidst our 5 days dedicated to packing our entire house, it had to be something super quick and easy to set-up, but highly engaging in order to keep Miss G happily {and independently} playing for as long as possible.
To get things started, I made a little ‘Popcorn Shop’ sign that took less than a minute to make, and popped it into the structure’s sign slot.
Then Grae and I made a big bowl of plain stove-top popcorn (in coconut oil of course) and she grabbed a measuring cup to act as her scoop while I grabbed an old salt shaker that works terribly (it barely lets anything out, and in this case that’s perfect) and put a little sea salt inside.
While I’ve seen really cute old-fashioned popcorn bags at our local dollar store, I’m a big fan of using what you have on hand if you can, so I grabbed some paper bags I’d used at a recent craft market and quickly wrote ‘POPCORN’ across the front of each one. Together we decided that the small white ones would be the shop’s personal size and the bigger brown ones would be family-sized.
After retrieving an apron, Miss G opened her popcorn shop for business.
She took orders, asking us about our size and salt preferences, and carefully scooped popcorn into bags. When an order was ready, she’d deliver it to us wherever we were working in the house, then check back in a few minutes later to see if we needed a free refill… Now that’s what I call service!
Our popcorn shop was a total hit with Grae and my guess is that she’d continue dishing out bags of popcorn as long as I’d continue filling the bowl.
This inexpensive cardboard contraption has brought us a ton of fun already and I fully plan to take advantage of it for the last few weeks before we move. ☺
To see the other ways we’ve used our cardboard market stand, click here.
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With our 
And when I say simple, I mean simple! Because our designated market builder seemed to miss a couple of steps in the process (*ahem* not me!) we have a couple of open slots near the top of the stand that were perfect for slipping a lightweight cotton scarf through to give the feel of a curtain. If we would have had a long, thin dowel, I would have attempted to fashion a working curtain, but no such luck. Of course, Miss G doesn’t seem to mind in the least.
The other small step we took to transform our market stand into a puppet theatre is to create a super simple welcome sign. We simply slid it into the poster holder in front of the fruit and veggie shop one and we were good to go.
All that was left was retrieving a few puppets, and luckily, Miss G had that covered.
These guys were up for some exercise and ended up jumping and ‘practicing falling’.
After playing with her traditional puppets a while, she pulled out her homemade 
Next up was the finger puppet crew. These guys did their usual performance – 5 little monkeys jumping on the bed.
Several weeks ago, while slowly making our way through the children’s section of Ikea, I spotted 
For the last little while, it’s been Grae’s Fruit & Veggie Market, where she sells all sort of 
One of Gracen’s very favourite pretend play games is ‘store’, so it goes without saying that this has been a total hit, plus I love the fact that it encourages all kinds of communication, manners, and role play.