Rod puppets are some of the easiest to make and use with children. My all time stand-bys are -- plastic spoon, paper tube, and bottle puppets. Easy to make, in great varieties, for virtually no cost.

Our puppet group and church volunteers have made the usual type of puppets, people from felt (you oughta see the grandparents our sewing volunteer made, the wrinkles and extra weight are FABulous!) and fuzzy "anything puppets" in a rainbow of colors.

For ultimate flexibility when you have a large cast of characters, rod puppets are terrific. We have about 20 with different yarn hair-styles, beards, skin tones, etc. and change up the characters with different head-wear and dresses (they're simple "pillowcase" style with a neck-hole to put the rod through).

When we have to illustrate conceptual stuff, like David's dream interpretation or Paul's conversion, we use shadow puppets. We have a curtain that is black on the bottom and white cotton on the top that we replace our usual solid front curtain with. The puppeteers can sit comfortably and manipulate shadow cutouts.

Peeper Puppets

They have a V shaped plastic piece that goes on your middle finger with the eyeballs sitting on top of the two points of the V -- your hand then makes the mouth.

Details about Peeper Puppets has been moved into its own topic here.

Search for resources on shadow puppetry here at this site.

Basically it just cutting a shape from black poster board. Other materials work as well. Attach a "stick" to one side of the puppet to use as a handle while pressing it up against the screen with the light shining from the back. Bendable straws work extremely well. Kids love to use a paper punch to make holes and designs in the puppet. These openings can then be backed with colored acetate or tissue paper and the color will show through.

Kurt Hunter gives WONDERFUL instructions in his book Puppets, Kids and Christian Education, ISBN-13: 978-0806664095, at the workshops that he and Kathy do!). I can't imagine trying to do puppetry without this book in hand. Good luck!

 Check out this post for more info on Kurt's book and his website.

Jan FPC Napa - Posted March 17, 2005

How to Simplify Puppet Skits

If we want the adults to be the narrators and the kids follow along with the script and their puppets (rather than the kids reading a script), in advance we use a storybook Bible version and rewrite it, putting the name of the character first so kids can listen for their character and know who is about to speak or act, and we emphasize the action words. Such as ... (words in CAPS said with more emphasis)

JESUS TURNED to SIMON and asked, "Simon, do you love me?"

PETER SEEMED PUZZLED and answered, "Yes, Lord, you know I do!"

For the groups later in the rotation who will know the story better, we might leave the speaking parts for the kids to answer ...

JESUS TURNED to SIMON and asked .... (person with Jesus puppet says the line

Sponge Puppets

Here's a fun looking way for kids to make simple puppets to use for a skit - sponge puppets - which includes 2 holes to put their fingers through for arms!

http://www.mssscrafts.com/dram...sic/spongepuppet.htm

We used these for our puppet workshop for Ruth.

ALSO ... since our puppet stage is a bit "tall" for our preschoolers, we created flat scenery on newsprint (a road, field, houses, etc.) and taped it to a table for them to "walk" their puppets around. Fun!