Puppet shows on your own puppet stage are not only great fun for children, but are also rich with developmental benefits that include nurturing creativity, teaching pretend play and allowing positive reinforcement. Puppet shows are also dramatic performances, and some simple rules of thumb will help make performing easier and more rewarding for the children, as well as clearer to understand for their audiences.
CHARACTER VOICES: Encourage each child to make up a character voice they think suits the puppet, or that they can perform well. Remember there's a great deal of flexibility and creative license in matching the role to the puppets on hand. The child can mimic a specific character from movies or TV that suits the part, such as the Cowardly Lion from "The Wizard of Oz," Mickey Mouse's high falsetto, and so on.
WALKING: To simulate a puppet walking or running across the stage, encourage the children to take it beyond merely sliding the puppets across the stage. Rather, have them bounce the puppet slightly up and down to represent each step as they move from one position to the other. These small "step-size" bounces can create more of a sense of excitement on stage and also allow puppeteers some great opportunities for jumping from view and other fun, dramatic moves.
BODY LANGUAGE: Show your children how to use pauses for dramatic or comedic effect, explaining to them how controlling the puppet's body moves is as important to their acting as their enthusiasm on stage. A pause and a slow turn by the puppet to the audience can pull the viewers into the puppet's exasperation or its "thought process." Paul Winchell, the great puppeteer and ventriloquist, was a master of the slow turn. Think of all the other ventriloquists and puppeteers you've seen. Sometimes a hesitation plays as well as a spoken line. Slightly vibrating the puppet can communicate fear or can be used to create a double-take of surprise. Holding up the puppet's arms can communicate glee. A puppet's hand on its chin shows it's thinking. Hunching the puppet forward can mean sadness. Help the children develop their own "body language" moves. Most animated cartoons use the same techniques.
TALKING: With moving-mouth puppets, the natural tendency for most is to SHUT the puppet's mouth in sync with each syllable. But humans do the opposite, and so should puppets. It may take practice, but try to teach each child to OPEN the puppet's mouth with every syllable. Sid worked with the Muppet puppeteers once, and that's the first thing they taught him.
GENDER NOTE: In adapting our collection of Aesop's Fables scripts, we've referred to the animal characters in the neuter "it," because we don't know if a boy or girl is ultimately going to play the part. (Aesop seemed to assume all animals were male.) When you find a script to adapt, you may have to switch pronouns, too. But the children will usually point that out right away. Don't let the gender of the original material keep you from performing a script you think works well with your puppet cast.
Puppets aren't, by construction, as fluid and flexible in communicating the emotions as humans are. As humans, we can roll our eyes, frown, smile and show how we feel in the subtle ways. If a child is having difficulty making the puppet communicate a certain emotion, have him stand in front of a mirror and try to express the emotion without the puppet. Point out if the child has tilted his head, drooped his shoulders or any other natural movements he has drawn upon to express the emotion. Then help him to translate these movements to the puppet. This will help the child become more aware of and comfortable with his emotions, and your puppet show will be richer and more enjoyable for everyone involved.
The Creativity Institute is an online educational toy store and information resource dedicated to helping parents enhance creative development in children, from infant through school age. The store handpicks each educational toy based on its potential for bringing out creative potential in children and includes such items as people and animal hand puppets and puppet theaters, toy musical instruments, art supplies and building blocks.
About the Authors: Gwynn Torres and Sid Berger founded The Creativity Institute to help parents boost creativity in children. They are both former advertising creative directors who've raised five creative children between them. Visit their site at: http://www.creativityinstitute.com MORE ON CHILD CREATIVITY Child's Play: Getting Your Child To Use Their Imagination Creative Play Helps Children Grow 7 Easy Creative Rituals to Spark Your Imagination and Inspire Your Soul From Children's Stories to Study Skills: Help Your Children Succeed in School Child Creativity - Children and Toys Child Creativity - Children and Stories Child Creativity - Children and Music Child Creativity - Children and Play Homeschool and Creativity Good Times with Creativity Child Creative Development News Briefs Child Creativity - Children and Drama Creativity for Success Creative Activites with your Children Developing Creativity in Children Old-fashioned Ways to Inspire Children Play Is Serious Business For Children's Intelligence The Need for Arts 10 Ways To Boost Your Creativity Awaken the Creative Genius Within Creativity and Broken Eggs If You'd Like to Know Why Reading Matters The Treasure of Reading to Children Puppets Help Children to Reveal their Deepest Feelings Puppets in Education Child Creativity - Children and Drama The Need for Arts Finding Scripts to Stage Your Own Puppet Shows Tips for Staging a More Professional Puppet Show Educational Toys for Infants Educational Toys for Toddlers Educational Toys for Preschoolers Educational Toys for Early School Age Children Educational Toys for Older School Age Children Educational Toys for Children with ADHD Music and the Young Child 12 Reasons You Should Learn to Play the Piano Musical Activities for Guaranteed Fun How Piano Lessons Benefit Young Children Online Piano Lessons Will Help You To Play Choosing the Right Time for Piano Lessons Is Your Child Capable of Composing Music? Introducing Children to Music - Strategies For Success The Case Against Traditional Piano Lessons Learn Piano the Easy Way! Learning the Piano and Playing the Piano Piano Tips How to Be Creative at the Piano Old-fashioned Ways to Inspire Children Educational Toys - Let Children Learn While They are Having Fun Guide to Choosing Educational Toys for Children Educational Toys Come in from the Cold Non-violent Educational toys Science Toys are Educational Toys What Toys Did Cavemen Kid Play With? Ten Things You Should Know Before you Buy Educational Toys Childhood Development and Educational Toys How To Buy Infants' Best Educational Toys Choosing Age Appropriate Educational toys for Babies Baby Toy Safety His Toy, Her Toy Early Childhood Development - Children and Play Award-Winning Educational Toys Finding Scripts to Stage Your Own Puppet Shows Tips for Staging a More Professional Puppet Creative Play Helps Children Grow Play is Serious Business For Children's Intelligence Gwynn's Corner Art for Children Puppet Theater Script Ideas Free Creative Printables Free Children's Sheet Music Newsletter Archive News Releases Award Winning Educational Toys Make your child more creative for life. Every child has creative ability just waiting to be tapped. Even infants have budding creative potential. The right educational toys can bring it out. and let children enjoy the benefits of creative pursuits at many levels. Infants, toddlers, preschoolers, early school age and older school age children all delight in opportunities for creative expression through colors, shapes and sounds. At The Creativity Institute, we handpick each infant educational toy, every creative plaything, each piece of furniture and every toy musical instrument based on its potential for developing vital creative resources in your child. Toy pianos, oversized foam building blocks, puppet theaters and puppet stages and people and animal hand puppets, art supplies and children's easels, play tents and more. The scale and durability of many of these toys make them perfect for classrooms, homeschool, day care centers and waiting rooms, too. The benefits of nurturing creativity can be profound, offering children tools for success in all endeavors athletic, artistic or academic. Let your baby begin now.
The Creativity Institute - Toys to Boost Child Creativity
Information on educational toys and creative development for:
Infants * Toddlers * Preschoolers *
Early School Age * Older School Age
Arts and Crafts * Easels * Climbers * Children's Factory * Building Blocks and Construction Toys * Foam Blocks * Wooden Building Blocks * Puppets * Puppet Stages * Animal Hand Puppets * People Hand Puppets * Musical Toys * Toy Pianos * Playhouses and Play Tents * Creative Play * Pretend Play * Dollhouses * Books * Storage and Furniture * Toy Chests * Cushions and Mats
FREE TOY PIANO SHEET MUSIC
Our Puppet and Puppetry Home Page
Contact or order by phone: 312-330-2640
Content copyright © 2010 The Creativity Institute, Inc. All rights reserved.
Secured by GeoTrust