Cookie Monster Toss

Here is the original pin from Pinterest that I came across while looking for Sesame St. party ideas.

What You Need:
3 sheets of light brown felt
circular foam brush
paint
light brown thread
needle
scissors
batting / stuffing
black beans
bowl (optional to trace circles)
blue felt
picture of Cookie Monster
printer / scanner
black marker
cardboard box (ex. diaper box)



First, I cut out the circles for the cookies on light brown felt.  I traced a bowl we had in the play dishes.

I had purchased dark brown felt as well to glue on the chips, but Natalie said she wanted to draw them.  So, I got out paint and some circular foam brushes we have.  (They are part of a brush set just like this one). 

Natalie did an awesome job painting on the chips.  I got the idea to put some rainbow candies on the ones I painted.  I think Natalie's came out better.  She is able to paint without thinking about it too much.  So, her random chips look random, whereas mine look like I tried to make them random.

After letting the paint dry, I sewed two pieces together facing each other using a simple back stitch.  I left an opening to turn it right side out.  Next, I stuffed them with some batting and some dry black beans.  Then I sewed shut the remaining portion of the cookie.

To make Cookie Monster's face, I first tried to draw it, but I was unsatisfied and Natalie was really laying on the pressure to feed him a cookie right away.  So, we scanned a coloring book picture, cropped it, and printed it out.  At first, I was just going to color it in, but then I let Natalie color it.  So, when she went to nap, I then cut out the face and traced it on to some blue felt.  I free handed the mouth and eyes.  I used a piece of white craft foam for the eyes.  I cut out the mouth.

I next cut the top flaps off a diaper box. 

I held the face up to the box and traced the mouth.  I used a box cutter to cut the hole for the mouth.  I wrapped the whole box in Sesame St theme wrapping paper.  I didn't bother wrapping the bottom, so I literally just wrapped it around the box, which was super easy.  After taping the paper in place, I cut out the mouth hole.  The last step was to glue on Cookie's face. 

Even though I made this for William's Sesame St themed first birthday party, it wasn't played with at the party.  But, my kids have enjoyed it since then.  We were quick to learn that the rest of our play food fits in his mouth, so they mostly feed him that. 

While I made this as a party game, you can easily add a little educational value to it by:

• naming the foods you feed Cookie and discussing their shapes, colors, scents, and tastes.  
• counting items you feed Cookie.  
•  talking about the first letters for the foods you feed Cookie.  
• watching "C is for Cookie" and otherwise learning about the letter C.  
• making special cookies that have numbers, letters, or shapes on them.  
• reading alphabet books dealing with food such as ABC's of Cookies (which is a Cookie Monster book), Eating the Alphabet, or Feed Up.