Handmade Action Figures

"Hey Mom, can I borrow your tape?" asked Jackson.

I handed him my last roll of Scotch tape, refraining from comment about the last three rolls of tape he'd gone through.

"What are you making?" I asked.

"Action figures!" he exclaimed, grabbing the tape and running away.

"I want that tape back!" I yelled at my empty office doorway.

I'm never sure what Jackson's projects will entail; he's a hands-on kid who has done everything from converting the craft table into a ping-pong table (complete with paper net) to building several cardboard replicas of the Titanic.

Usually he confines his projects to allotted areas, like our arts and crafts room. On this day, I found a crayon drawing of a tree with a fat brown nest at the end of an outstretched branch taped to the living room wall. Before I could take the boys to task for defacing the wall, they rushed over to the drawing, announcing that their play was about to begin. I took a seat on the couch, banishing worries about peeling paint, and waited.

"We made action figures for our play!" exclaimed Jackson. Each boy held a colorful paper bird taped to the end of a drinking straw. They told a story about three birds that lived in the nest, each holding their bird near the nest as he spoke. The play was a hit and this critic was thrilled to find that the set design didn't mar the living room walls.

You can use anything from paper dolls to clip art characters to homemade action figures like ours for puppet shows or imaginative play. Here's what you'll need to get started: