Provide a puppetry experience in youth group settings with simple easy to do puppetry activities that are not difficult or time consuming. Interactive and multi-generational. Adults bring their children to library activities and stay to assist. Puppetry is a flexible art form and adapts to the needs of its participants.
LIBRARY PUPPET ACTIVITY:
Format:
Informal greeting and sharing as the children arrive.
Puppet and manipulation are demonstrated. Fishy music can be played. By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea...".
Fish story is read.
Children choose supplies from the supplies table. Or small packets with supplies can be prepackaged and handed out.
Children sit at the work tables to embellish their puppets.
Children show their finished work.
Preparation: Felt hand puppet bodies sewn ahead of time. Seek out sewers, such as family members, and quilting friends.
Room set up.
Story telling area. Sitting on the floor in a half circle.
Supplies table. Glue gun station with a helper, for gluing.)
Work tables.
Participants:
Children ages 5-12
Presenter and Assistant (This can be a library aid, or parent helper. )
Helpers on a volunteer basis. Family members, including young adults.
Schedule:
Set up time 15 minutes.
Story time: 30 Minutes ans story sharing.
Puppet decorating: 30 minutes.
Children display their puppets if glue is dry.
Swim the puppets if time permits.
Clean up: 15 minutes.
Class size: 30 children maximum.
Greet the children as they arrive, show and demonstrate several examples of the fish puppet.
Demonstrate by making the fish swim. Move your wrist up and down and sideways. Suitable music can be played.
Encourage family members to stay and enjoy the story and to participate in the puppet making activity.
When the puppets are completed and pieces arsecurely attached, have the children show and tell their puppets.
and the group to sing to favorite songs. Individually the children can tell a personal fish story, make up a story, or read a story. As a group can sing a favorite song together.
OBSERVATIONS:
Before the activity began, the presenter was told that a ten year old boy who was participating, had ADD, and would finish the project in half the time and would need something more to do. However, he and his grandmother worked together, and when the hour was finished, he was still working fervently, gluing an elaborate array of giant sequins all around the fish and on both sides!
Several children did not have a helpers with them, and vied for extra attention from library helpers, who stopped at each table.
A preschool boy hugged his fish after he had finished it.
A young mother with a toddler played on the floor in the midst of the activity. (She was given a fish puppet that had been completed beforehand.) Felt eyes were used instead of wiggly eyes on her puppet, as wiggly eyes can be considered a choking hazard for very young children if they aren't securely attached.)
Two 5th grade girls came to the workshop together and worked side by side. The fish they embellished took on the intricate embroidery look of their traditional dress, which I believe was from India.
Several children were happy working independently, using tacky glue only, and not needing assistance from and adult with a glue gun. They seemed to enjoy being a part of the group as a whole.
I had the opportunity to sit with a little girl of 6 or 7 years of age. Her grandfather sat alongside her watching curiously.
She decided where she wanted to put the lace on her puppet, and pointed to me exactly where she wanted the glue to go. I assisted using a low melt glue gun. At one point she chose to overlap a second piece of lace. The grandfather suggested she move the lace, so the pieces didn't overlap.
This little girl stuck out her chin and most firmly said, "Grandpa." As if to say, "This is my design." He smiled.
Mixed media art," I said with a smile.
He took note that his granddaughter liked lace, and the color pink, and he continued to watch as she worked. She measured the number of scallops on a piece of lace and cut it accordingly to make each piece the same size. The next piece she simply folded in half and cut it in the middle. I sensed the grandfather was very tickled with her creative problem solving.
A short time later, I was called away from their table, and when I turned and looked back, the grandfather was manning a glue gun and putting the glue where requested. This I think is what mentoring is all about.
Grandmothers alongside and listening. Elderly Play and Care
When I was a girl growing up in rural Minnesota in the early fifties, it was my grandmother who opened my eyes to the arts. She already knew about going green-repurposing, and mixed media:
Paper dolls cut from old magazines, and paste made of flour and water for gluing things like egg shells onto empty thread spools. Old envelopes taken apart at the seams for of an ample amount of drawing paper. My first doll dress was sewn from my grandmother's scraps of printed feed sacks found in her bottom dresser drawer. We sang at the piano and made up tunes. Popped popcorn and added it to custard pie on baking day. Dried the the forks and spoons characters, and made up stories about them. Drank pretend tea from mud pie dishes out in a pretend playhouse in the trees. Good to remember here at HollyhockJunction. See puppet examples on 2012 blog posts.
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A fishy Story Hour: A list of children's books I ran across for sale on Ebay that look like good titles for library 
story and craft hour.
The Pout Pout Fish
Listen to Your Fish
Dr Seuss: One Fish Two Fish
Fidgety Fish and Friends
Hooray For Felix
Big Fish Little Fish
I'd Choose a Fish
Little Fish Molly (Ukraine)
Humu The Little Fish Becomes the Color of Sand
(Hawaii)
The Biggest Fish
In the Old Testament of the Bible in the book of Jonah, Jonah was swallowed by a great fish. And in The New Testament, several of Jesus' deciples were fishermen-- Peter, James and John (Luke 5:17.
Great community craft project. This felt fish was creatively embellished by a preschooler. Grandparents helped alongside their grandchildren with glue and cutting as
directed by their prescooler!
See June 18th post. There are also many other simple hand puppet posts.
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I head for my craft room in the cool but damp basement. I'm working on how to make a reptile seem warm and fuzzy and I put a sweater on it.
