Home made puppets are some of the most played with toys in our house, lending themselves time and time again to all sorts of adventures. The children . . . → Read More: Shadow puppets]]>
Remember the indoor meadow we grew as one of our Earth Day activities? This week it has become the indoor / outdoor stage for a theatre production using shadow puppets.

Home made puppets are some of the most played with toys in our house, lending themselves time and time again to all sorts of adventures. The children play with puppets so often I think because it lets them be the master of a small universe and really stretch their imaginations as they tell their tales. Puppets are also a wonderful way for children to work out real-life relationships and develop their language – and so much fun to make! Here’s how the girls made their shadow puppets this week, with links to some of the other puppet ideas in our archives.

How to make shadow puppets

They started by drawing out their characters on black card. Card works better than paper a it gives the puppets more substance and they’ll last longer for more play. We happened to have black card out for drawing on that day, which I think sparked the girls idea to make shadow puppets, as the black made their images look like shadows even before any light was shone on them – but any colour would work. To cast clear shadows it’s best to use bold, clear shapes for your characters. You might like to make a set to tell a particular story, or make a set of archetypes you can use for lots of tales: a wolf, a castle, a princess, a dragon….

Once the shadow puppets are cut out you can add in a few extra details using a craft knife. Think about the effect the light shining on your puppets will create and add eyes, mouths or windows.

Add a stick to the back of each puppet – a wooden skewer, lollipop stick, drinking straw or twig from a tree can all work well.

Then your puppets are ready to play. B borrowed an angled lamp to shine on her puppets to cast shadows on the wall. L was happy to have the black  puppets as they were and used the indoor meadow as her stage. Poking the sticks in to the soil held them all in places for her to tell her tale of a princess locked in a tower by a mean wolf, and set free with the help of a friendly little bird.

More puppet ideas

If you liked these shadow puppets you might also like
:: scary monster puppets
:: peg doll puppets
:: fairy tale fridge magnets
:: balloon puppets

Crafting with children can be a wonderful time to sit with them and have a conversation or explore an idea. The children who made these spring lamb pictures are aged between one and three and a half.  And each in their own way created their answer to the same question: what does a lamb look like?

I have a wonderful project to share with you today which combines literacy and art ideas to create magical Incy Wincy books.

We’ve been at the GobbleDEEbook Children’s Literature Festival in Chester this week, having a fabulous time. One of the workshops we attended was run by Becky Adams, an artist who explores the links between narratives . . . → Read More: Incy Wincy books with artist Becky Adams]]>

I have a wonderful project to share with you today which combines literacy and art ideas to create magical Incy Wincy books.

We’ve been at the GobbleDEEbook Children’s Literature Festival in Chester this week, having a fabulous time. One of the workshops we attended was run by Becky Adams, an artist who explores the links between narratives and textiles. She guided a room full of children and parents through the workshop, resulting in everyone producing their very own, unique Incy Wincy book.

How to make an Incy Wincy book

Each of the matchboxes above contain a special Incy Wincy book, telling a tale with an extra secret inside.

We all began with a plain piece of paper 9.5cm x 12.5cm – the perfect size to make a book which fits inside a matchbox.

Becky showed everyone how to use a French fold to turn their piece of paper into an Incy Wincy book. (Follow that link for a great video showing you how to fold your paper.)

Becky asked everyone to think of a tiny main character for their book. We opened up our folded paper and drew our character on the inside page. Here’s B’s dragonfly. Every character was to have a super power. B’s dragonfly can breath fire.

Once the book was re-folded our super-powered heroes were hidden inside the pages and only we knew they were there.

Then everyone began writing their stories. Becky had lots of ideas for adding interesting extras to the narrative, such as stamping some of the text, or using an old-fashioned typewriter.
B decided to add some fabric to her text, to show the colour of the fire.

The whole room was buzzing with creativity. Everyone seemed to know immediately how their story would be told. L has all of a sudden come  alive with writing and drawing and was very clear about how her butterfly was going to whiz off to a secret land and meet a fairy.
 To complete the books we decorated our matchboxes, some with fabric, some with paper, some with musical scores. Handles were made using split pins, some plain, some decorative and some with added beads. Everyone left with a mini masterpiece in their pocket: a wonderful combination of literacy and art ideas.

Many thanks to Becky for so kindly letting me share her ideas with you all. I hope if you make some with your children you’ll share a photo with us.

Love these Incy Wincy books?

Discover more beautiful works from Becky Adams.

Find out more about the GobbleDEEbook Children’s Literature Festival.

See more of our ideas to get children writing.

happily shared with it’s playtime and  show and tell and today’s creative blog and  monday madness and made by little hands monday and made by you monday and  link and learn and craft schooling sunday and  the sunday showcase

First we had a blast of ideas for all the things we might find on our . . . → Read More: Autumn sensory scavenger hunt]]>
Remember the easy sewing project from yesterday, showing how to make a bag? It was a fun project for little fingers but we turned it into a springboard for another activity too, by making a scavenger hunt on the reverse side.

First we had a blast of ideas for all the things we might find on our nature walk . The children shouted them out and we put all the ideas down on some stickers. Some wrote them down, some drew pictures and I scribed the others. Here a some of the things they came up with:

leaves, sticks, twigs, branches, trees, feathers, pinecones, grass, acorns, conkers, squirrels, cobwebs, bark

Then I asked them to think what colours, shapes and textures we might find:

hard, cold, smooth, spiky, soft, sticky, floaty, pointy, round, scratchy, tall, long

Once we’d captured all the ideas, we stuck our stickers all over one side of the bag – we put them on the side without the child’s initial on, and added the stickers before we laminated the paper. This became the reverse side to our scavenger hunt bag. Then we set off on our nature walk to see how many things we could find  to match the words we’d thought of.

Having a bag for each child encourages everyone to join in and gives everyone a turn to find treasures. It also means I’m not the only one carrying everything – and collects a great variety of items to explore in the other activities we have planned for this week.

The list of ideas on the bag is a prompt to invite the children to explore the shape and feel of everything they find, and to use their eyes and ears to seek out lots of different items. The bag design makes it easy for the children to carry the list with them, and the initials on the flip side lets each child locate their bag of goodies.

Come back tomorrow to see what we did with all the things we found.

And hop back to yesterday’s post if you’d like all the instructions for how to make a bag.

 happily shared with nature connections and sunday showcase and  friday’s nature table and  it’s playtime

Our easel is set up in the kitchen where the children can’t help but notice it and has lots of fun pens and pencils with it for them to use. Every . . . → Read More: Pirate map literacy fun]]>

Literacy and maps

We’ve been using our easel to try out lots of literacy ideas recently and our latest one was to try out a pirate map.

Our easel is set up in the kitchen where the children can’t help but notice it and has lots of fun pens and pencils with it for them to use. Every week or so I’ve been setting up an invitation to write on it – something I think might act as springboard into some writing or conversation or storytelling.

This week I drew the basic outline of a pirate map, just enough detail for the children to get a clue about where we might be heading, but with plenty of scope for them to make it their own. And look what happened…

We have characters, we have a journey, we have danger and adventure.

:: The easel is in the kitchen were we spend a lot of time together – so it’s ready whenever the children have an idea to add

:: There’s nearly always someone else in the room to chat with about what you’re drawing, so lots of chatter and discussion takes place

:: A map is all about going somewhere or finding something, so it’s a natural invitation to add people and places and adventures, creating a natural story telling. (I love that the two characters are holding hands)

:: A map also very easily becomes something to play with – tear it off the easel and now you’re the pirate, off to role-play a treasure hunt or sail away in your sofa boat.

For more ideas using an easel try:

Maps and literacy

What can you make with these circles

Use the force: Star Wars and literacy

Take literacy outside

For more pirate fun try:

Let’s play pirates

Junk model galleons