An adult put the hand puppets out next to the finger ones from the week before. They handled them for a while and found the hole, and hands went in.
One had an elephant on. “Nnnnh.”
“You're being an elephant. Hello, elephant.”
Then a pig went on the other hand. “Pig. Oink oink.”
“Pigs do go oink, don't they. What does a duck do?”
“Quack quack!” — from somebody else, with a hand held out in front of their mouth for the beak.
“You've turned into a duck.”
“Quack quack.
One child got the tiger out. “Tiger! Rrraah!”
That brought the others over to the basket.
A pig went onto one hand and was held up to be seen. “Oink oink.”
An adult made the noise back. Then another child fetched the lion and put it into the adult's hands.
“Rrraah, I'm a lion.”
A laugh, and then: “Rrraah! Rrraah! Lion!”
They brought the rest of them over one at a time to be done, and after that started feeding them with the toy food.
One child had been sitting with the hippo book on their own, then brought it over to be read.
Others wanted it too, so there was room made and it got read again.
Then somebody came over with the hippo puppet on. “I'm the hippo.”
“So you are. A lovely hippo has come to see us.”
“You be the hippo too.” And handed it over.
An adult put it on and did the voice, and they laughed at that.
So the hippo book got read again, this time by the hippo.
They had the animal hats on and were being the animals.
Then one child took theirs off and hung it over a wrist like a bag, and started putting the animals into it.
“This is a bag.”
The other one had a hand puppet, and was posting animal pasta down inside it.
“The tiger's hungry.”
One child laid the puppets out along the table. “Come and buy a puppet.”
Another chose the one from Japan, and a third started to cry about it — “I want that one.”
“Ask her to give it to you when she's finished.”
The crying carried on for a bit. Then it did get handed over, and that child went and sat next to the first one and copied what she was doing.
Then a play bowl came over to be the toilet.
“Yodel-ay-ee-oo! The puppet's doing a poo.”
Snowflake blocks went down inside the puppet, a lot of them, and that was how much poo there was. The one who had been crying laughed out loud at it, and the first one did it again to see if it would happen twice.
One child had the book from the day before. “Out of all the animals I like tigers best.”
The others said they liked tigers too.
Small blocks came over and went together into a bed, and the tiger was laid down on it.
“Go to sleep, go to sleep, my baby.”
Another child watched that. “But tigers are strong.”
And picked the tiger up, and knocked it down onto the table, and then into the window.
“Rrraah — the tiger's hurt! Take him to hospital.”
An adult made a cow noise. One child looked at that for a while, then started fetching the animals off the shelf and handing them over, one by one.
A dog came over.
“Boo hoo, the dog's poorly. Shall we kiss it better? Kiss it better for me.”
That child pointed at the dog's hurt leg — and then cried.
Another one had come over with an animal in each hand, waiting.
“Woof! I love you.” And a kiss, and a proper hug.
“Ah!” — out loud, laughing.
Then an adult put an animal headband on that child and found the matching puppet. “Rrraah! I'm a tiger!”
The headband came straight off and went down on the floor. And that child handed the animal over again, to be done again.
The job puppets and figures had come out that morning.
One child put the police one on and went round telling the others: “Mind out.”
Then a fire started somewhere, with the fireman, and they put it out together.
“Where's the fire?”
“What else do police do?”
One of them went looking for the puppet theatre, so an adult set it up in the room.
They put chairs out in front of it in a row.
The moment anybody sat down: “Come and see the show! It starts in a minute!”
And the hand puppets came out, and they waved them over the top.
One child likes playing with socks. They put a sock on each hand and used them as puppets.
“Hello.”
“Ha ha.”
And said it again, and again.
Then, when the puppets were finished with, the socks stayed on.