MAKE YOUR OWN PUPPET SHOW FOR KIDS

Everyone loves a good puppet show, specially kids. Puppetry was first invented thousands of years ago. It has been used to spread ideas and to communicate since ancient times and it can be very effective tool in development of your child.

CONNECT WITH YOUR CHILD

When you are presenting a puppet show to kids, you are no more a grown-up for them. You are not someone to be afraid of or to be kept distance from. You are as silly and as fun loving as them. You make different sounds, you laugh out loud, you cry, you shout..... in short kids think you are one of them. This gives you an advantage to communicate and really connect with the kids. Now, if you tell them something through the puppet show, they are more likely to listen to you.

POSSIBILITIES

Puppets can be used for very different reasons. They can be used to teach your child things ranging from importance of hygiene (brushing teeth, taking bath) to good touch and bad touch. But Puppetry need not be limited to just indirect disciplining or teaching. It can also be a used to widen imagination of your child or simply to tell a story and have a good time.

So, are you interested in making a puppet show for your child? Lets get to it!

MAKE PUPPETS AT HOME

There are different kinds of puppets you can make. Easiest to make at home are stick puppets and sock puppets.

Stick Puppets

 Stick puppet is made of 2 main parts 1st is picture or a drawing of character and second is a stick which will be used to hold the character.

Preparation

You can make the first part by either drawing a character e.g. bird, animal, boy, girl, joker, king, queen etc. (decide based on the kind of stories you want tell your kids through puppet show) or by cutting out a picture from a magazine or drawing book that you may have or by simply printing some pictures found on internet.

Cut-Out From Coloring Book

For the second part, you can make a stick out of any kind of paper by rolling it as shown in the picture below. When you finish rolling, use glue or a sticky tape to make sure that rolled paper remains as a stick.

Making Paper Stick

Now you can attach your character to the stick using glue or a tape.

Stick Puppet

You can also use other things like plastic spoons as a stick or you fingers to make finger puppets

Puppet on Plastic Spoon

Finger Puppet

 

 

Sock Puppets

 To make a sock puppet, you can use regular socks you may have at home or buy them specially for this purpose (preferably of bright colors like white, yellow, pink). You can draw faces on the bottom part of the sock (animal, bird, human.... as you want.).

Preparation

You can always buy sock puppets available in shops if you like. Keep in mind that you have to put our hands inside the sock while presenting a puppet show using sock puppets.

Sock Puppet

MAKING STAGE FOR A PUPPET SHOW

Now your puppets are ready but you need a platform to present your show. The stage can be of 2 different types. It can be either a platform which can hold your stick puppets in upright position without you holding them in hand all the time. Or it can be a more traditional stage where you have to sit behind the stage and only puppets will be visible to the kids. Here is how you make the stage on your own.

Puppet Holding Stage

 Easiest way to do this is just to find a box similar to as shown in the picture below. You can generally find it in a supermarket or at place where you can buy gardening related stuff.

Puppet Holding Stage

Otherwise you can buy a cardboard box or use one that came with your last Amazon order, and make holes in it as shown in the picture below.

Your puppet holding stage is ready!!!

Traditional Puppet Show Stage

 This one needs some efforts and creativity but is not very difficult if you really enjoy hands-on activities.

Step 1 - Take a big cardboard box (buy or use one that came with home delivery of items. I usually order diapers for my son online. So, I usually receive a lot of such boxes.)

Step 2 - Locate its biggest flat surface and cover it with a drawing paper (paper on which you can draw, paint and stick some paper made flowers etc.). Cut the drawing paper in required size and glue it on the box.

Step 3 (Optional) - you can cut out the unwanted part of the box.

Step 4 - Draw &/or paint on the drawing paper with a theme of your choice. You can also glue some cutouts if you want. A sample stage theme is shown in the picture below.

Your traditional stage is ready!!!

Puppet Show On a Traditional Stage

SAMPLE PUPPET STORy

Here is a sample puppet show we made for our Son. Puppet Show Link

TIPS FOR A BLOCKBUSTER PUPPET SHOW

Here are some key points you should keep in mind while presenting a puppet show.

Keep in mind your audience. Kids love drama, try to use a excited tone while narrating the story. Let the characters laugh and cry loudly. Keep story themes simple and graspable for your child. You can teach many things through puppetry but do not make the puppet show just about that, keep it fun too! otherwise your audience will lose interest quickly.

Play

So, enjoy the game and do let us know your experience in the comment section. Feel free to ask any questions you may have and all the suggestions are welcome!!!

You are now all set to make your own puppet show. Have fun!!!

Did you like this post? Please subscribe to our blog by pressing the subscribe button on top of this post. This way, you wont miss our future posts.