Puppets [cont.]

Paper bags

Scissors

Colored papers

Paste

Paints or crayons

A first grade class expressing themselves freely and imaginatively --making faces on paper bags. The teacher should be alert to stimulate the children to an awareness of the facial parts, perhaps encouraging experimentation with the papers for some three-dimensional effects. He should be ready to accept a wide variety of interpretations and should be careful to see that the puppet remains a product of the child's own imagination and experience.

At this age level, more emphasis should be placed on the use of the puppets than on the puppets themselves. After each child has completed his puppet, the teacher might suggest the beginning of a story, such as the following: "There is a little boy in our neighborhood who is about your age. He has a very bad habit of throwing stones at things. The other day he threw one over his back fence. Crash! Out came his neighbor, a very grumpy man. Out came his mother. The man began to speak to the boy; the mother spoke to the man. What do you think they said? What did the little boy say? Who would like to pretend to be the little boy, the man, the mother? That's fine, now come to the front of the room, put your puppet over your hand, and go behind the piano (or screen) and finish the play." At this point the children begin to express themselves. In this way the teacher can develop a play that will go on spantaneously for five minutes or so in which the children will adopt the suggested charactaers and identify with the problems of the little boy of the play. Teachers will frequently find that boys and girls who when called to the front of the class to read or talk can only giggle and laugh or are generally unable to express themselves may become quite at ease in a role in such a play. (However, puppetry is not a cure-all). At this same age level, the teacher may want to develop in the children a greater feeling for group activities. To accomplish this, he may separate the children into groups of three, four, or five and have each group work out a play of its own.

STICK AND BAG PUPPETS [exploration in materials and ideas] With this puppet, the child slips the bag over the stick and firmly stuffs it with wads of newspaper. He then ties the open end of the bag firmly to the stick; if a stapler is available, the bag can be stapled to the stick. He paints the head or makes a face with colored paper and paste, or uses crayons if they are the only available material. Perhaps a search of resources will uncover some scrap yarns, wood shavings, buttons, and so forth to decorate the puppet. Encourage the children to search for some new use for old, or seemingly useless, materials. This exploration in materials and ideas is basic to creative education.

Having completed a head on the stick, the children will want to make an appropriate body. If no cardboard or oaktag is available, the body can be sketched on a piece of newspaper. The child can cut it out of about ten thicknesses of newspaper and staple, tape, or seal the edges with paste. He can then paint, crayon, or dress the body in colored papers. If the teacher is working on a limited budget, he can find an excellent supply of colored paper in the wallpaper books that the local paint, wallpaper, and decorator shops discard periodically as styles, prices, and lines change. This body can then be glued or stapled onto the stick. It will provide great pleasure if the child moves it as he talks. A good practice is for the children to give some movement with each word spoken.

This type of puppet lends itself to correlated projects, especially where children are studying other lands and peoples. It makes it possible for the children to design examples of the clothing worn by the people being studied, and lends itself to research by very young children. The middle or upper elementary grades are generally the best for this type of project, since children of this age have a high interest in clothing and dress.

MORE BAG PUPPETS
The common paper bag has endless possibilities for puppet making. In the upper elementary grades, a good project is to make puppets using nothing but paper bags. The children should bring in as many types and sizes of bags as they can find and plenty of newspapers for use in stuffing and for clothing. The bags are stuffed with wadded newspapers and stapled or glued shut. If staples are not available, the bags can be sewed shut with thread or yarn.

A child can start with his largest bag for the body. On top of it he may staple or sew a medium-sized bag to serve as the head. He may then take a long, thin bag and cut it in half lengthwise, making two long, thin bags. Of course he must paste, staple, or sew the open edges together so that they can be stuffed. These two bags can serve as arms and be attached to the "shoulders" of the largest bag. The child finds other bags to serve as legs, hands, or feet. If he is especially skillful, he may want to make joints at the knees and elbows. Sometimes little bags will serve as ears or a nose, or the child can modify the main bags to produce facial features. This type of puppet can simply be suspended by strings from a single stick, such as a yardstick, which can be jiggled to produce the effect of walking or moving.

Another child may find a long, thin bag that will serve as the body of an animal, and bags that he can use as legs, tails, ears, or a head. He may even make a lower jaw, so that his dog can bark or his lion bite.

Having made the main structures, the children can costume or decorate the puppets. Older age children are apt to be very inventive and to find many materials that they can bring from home to serve as the costumes. Children may come in with bits of felt from an old hat to serve as ears for a dog; they may find a piece of rope to serve as a tail for a horse, or a piece of old lace tablecloth or old window curtain for a fancy dress. This sort of puppet serves in dramatizing stories. Instead of being hidden behind a screen or stage, the puppeteers simply walk and move with their puppets in full view of the audience. This is significant in that the child no longer is protected by the stage. He is communicating in full view of his peers. The amazing part of such a performance is the fact that soon after the presentation begins, the audience becomes aware of the children and becomes interested only in the puppets. Likewise, the children who operate the puppets soon lose any fear of the audience and identifiy only with the puppet.

CYLINDER PUPPETS

9" x 12" or 12" x 18" drawing or construction paper

Stapled or glued where the ends meet when rolled into a cylinder. This tube then serves as the head of the puppet. Some children will make long, thin tubes; others will make short, squat ones. Some may even deviate from the cylinder and choose to make a cone shape or a modification of the cone shape. Such deviations should be encouraged.

Having made this basic shape, the child should then be encouraged to decide what sort of person his tube might represent. Does it make him think of a pleasant person, a grouchy person, an old person? When he decides, he may proceed to make his puppet. Using paper, scissors, and paste, he develops a face. Since this type of puppet works best for the middle or upper elementary grades, it is a good plan for the teacher to encourage some three-dimensional experimentation with the cut paper on the puppet. Perhaps one child may discover a way to make the lips protude from the face, whereas another may find a way to make the cheeks bulge, and still another may invent a new type of eyelid or eyelash. Still others may work out ways of making hair, mustaches, whiskers, ears, or tongues. Others may decide to put hats on their puppets. Some may make a bonnet; other may make hats with large, floppy brims; still others may make high silk hats. It is a wise teacher who encourages the children to experiment and to deviate from standard methods. It is in these variations and innovations that the children use their abilities to the utmost and that the craft is beginning to fulfill its most significant purposes.

To complete such a puppet, each child can make a small tube of construction paper that fits snugly over his middle finger. This tube is fastened to the inside wall of the puppet head by means of staples, sticky paper, or glue. When the child slides his hand inside the head, with the finger firmly inserted in the smaller tube, the puppet is secure and easily managed. A body can be made of heavy construction paper, oaktag, newspapers, or whatever materials are readily accesible. It should be made bulky in order to conceal the child's arm. The stage may be the classroom piano, a large table tilted on end, or perhaps a large piece of wrapping paper stretched across a corner of the room.

This type of puppet is especially effective when the class is adapting a play from classroom reading. It is good because it requires few materials, because it is easy to make, and because the shapes of the heads place such limitations on the interpretation of the characters thay the children are unable to copy stereotyped concepts. Imagine the ingenuity it will call forth from each child to make Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf from cylinders rather than making them in a way in which they have always seen them, thus breaking the stereotypes so often found when familiar characters are used.

VARIETY IN PUPPETS
Excellent puppets can be made very rapidly on perfectly flat surfaces. A picnic plate will serve as a good form on which to make the head of a two-dimensional puppet. These can be made using some of the same methods described previously, such as fastening the picnic plate to a stick and making a body of construction paper or oaktag.

Children may also try to invent finger puppets built on simple tubes and decorated with colored papers and scrap materials. For variations with younger children a teacher may want to use fruits, styrofoam Chirstmas balls, or vegetables as the heads for puppets. For example, a withered potato or a sour apple with a clothespin inserted to hold it by would serve as an excellent foundation for a puppet. The children can bring in buttons, pins, or old costume jewelry to serve as facial parts. When apples are ripe country or suburban children may find cornsilk or grasses to serve as hair and whiskers. Some bits of cloth or an old stocking will make an excellent dress. Sometimes puppets are made from discarded light bulbs or rubber balls using similar methods. It goes without saying, of course, that great care must be taken with light bulbs or with any glass used by children.

A puppet can be fashioned from a variety of common kitchen utensils.