UCB Parents Recommendations
Puppets & Puppet Theaters
Advice and recommendations from the UCB Parents mailing list.
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Heike
Maybe this is kind of a silly question, but are there scripts
somewhere for fun and meaningful puppet shows one could
easily perform? I grew up with a puppet theatre overseas and
it was always very special. I'm not so much interested in the
princess, king, clown & villain tales, but in family, community
people, and animal puppets and related stories. Maybe there
are certain children's books that just lend themselves to be played.
Any leads on where to get scripts, where to buy nice finger puppets
are greatly appreciated. I'd also be interested in any comments on
what age span is especially fascinated in puppet shows.
Bonnie
One of my favorite activities at the May Faire and Harvest Faire
has always been the puppet show. It is performed by the
kindergarten teachers for young children from pre-K
through about 3rd grade (although anyone can come),
and their parents. The puppets are hand-made cloth
dolls with long strings attached, rather like marionettes.
So the 'theatre' is not as small as for a finger puppet
show, but rather spans the length of several low tables.
You can plainly see the teachers' moving the puppets about,
but you forget about them in your absorption in the story.
The stories usually are fairy tales, but often ones you have
never heard before. You might be able to call the school
and ask (EBWS - 223-3570), or just look through the Pink,
Green, Blue, etc. Fairy Tale books collected by A. Lang, I
believe, for ideas. My children have even put on similar shows
of their own, using whatever they had at hand. Once they did
a great puppet show for The Knight and the Dragon, by Tomie
de Paola, using wooden figures we had at home.
Cute puppets can be purchased at Hearthsong... They have
finger puppets. I've also fairly successfully made puppets, both
with boxes and socks.... I am not at all crafty either.
I've also seen cute puppets in the natural baby catalog.
Here are some particularly adorable finger puppets:
http://store.yahoo.com/naturalbaby/172522-puppets.html
Amazon also has some.
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University of California, Berkeley.