My son and I had an idea. Make socks into snake puppets; "Socky Snakes" A pair of old socks, one with a hole in it, buttons for eyes, and a ribbon cut into a tongue. My son particularly wanted a blue tongue (perhaps he remembered seeing a blue tongue lizard?)
You can't see that clearly, but he also used a dark red marker pen to make dots and stripes on the body. I got him to choose the buttons he wanted from my thrifted button stash, I then stitched with needle and thread.
He called his snake "Teresa" - an interesting name for a snake?!