How to Make a Potato Animal Barnyard!

By Kathy Minicozzi

 

 

Items needed:

 

1. A small cardboard box, with flaps.

 

2. An assortment of potatoes of all sizes, washed and dried, including a couple of small, round russet potatoes, if you have them.

 

 

3. A box of toothpicks

 

4. Duct tape

 

5. Used coffee grounds. Digging these out of the garbage is not recommended. You need to save them in advance or, if you never clean the coffeemaker until you absolutely have to, just open it up and take some out.

 

6. A black marking pen

 

7. One or two bored six year olds and one frazzled adult trying to keep them from swinging on the living room curtains

 

Take the cardboard box. Fold all the flaps down inside it except for one. Fold that one like a roof over the box.

 

Secure it with duct tape so that it won't flap around or fall down.

Cut a door into the side of the box where you have made the "roof." Try to open it so that the fold of the door is straight. A crooked door looks really dumb. Draw a big knob on the door with the black marking pen. If desired, you can also write the word "barn" on the outside wall of the box, next to the door. To get an authentic sloppy rustic look, let one of the six year olds do the writing. If the kid manages to misspell the word, even better.

 

The first animal you will make is a cow. Take one of the big potatoes and four of the smallest ones (not the russets, though). Stand each small potato on end and stab the top of it with a

 

toothpick. Using the other ends of the toothpicks, attach each little spud to the four corners of the big one, to make the body and the legs. Take one of the russets and attach it in the same way as the head. Draw a face on the russet. To make sure that everyone who sees this knows it is supposed to be a cow, write the word "cow" on the critter's back. Place it inside the box.

 

Next comes the pig. Follow the same directions as for the cow, except instead of the word "cow," write the word "pig" on it. Put it in the box next to the cow.

 

Take six of the smallest potatoes, put them together in the same way and mark it "sheep." Put this in the box, too.

 

Next, take some coffee grounds and put them in various spots on the floor of the box, to make little piles of cow, pig and sheep manure. Position the potato animals so that they are facing away from the piles of poo, to show that they don't like the smell.

 

You now have a fun little barnyard for the kiddies to play with. Please encourage them to bring it to school for Show and Tell. It will bring the magical gift of uncontrollable laughter to their classmates.

 

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

Kathy Minicozzi is an opera singer turned emerging humor and fiction writer. Her operatic career took her all over the world, from Germany and Israel to Cairo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Seoul. She has been living in New York City for the past thirty years, and loves it. She likes to write about anything that can inspire a good laugh, or at least a giggle.