Puppet Fun
Puppets aren’t just for kids. Our family had fun homeschooling experiences with puppets. Both times they involved elderly people.
When Mary Evelyn and a homeschooled friend were about 12-13, they decided to volunteer at a nursing home. When we asked the activity director for ideas of what they might do, she suggested that they take puppets along with them and visit residents. They did that several times.
When we were still living in Illinois, John, Bethany, and Mary Evelyn prepared a puppet show based on Ecclesiastes 3, which begins:
There is an appointed time for everything.
And there is a time for every event under heaven—
A time to give birth and a time to die;
A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
A time to kill and a time to heal;
A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to weep and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn and a time to dance.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-4
Our children performed their show at a meeting of the Golden Agers — the senior citizens group at our church. It was a hit.
Several years ago, Ray and I did puppet shows for our grandchildren at Thanksgiving and Christmas. At the time, the youngest person in the audience was a granddaughter who was only a few months old. Now she is ten. Mother was the oldest person here that night. She was 83. Our first Notty and Little puppet show was such a hit at Thanksgiving, . . .
A portion of our mesmerized audience in November
. . . that Ray and I had another go at it at our family Christmas gathering. Everyone enjoyed it again. I was particularly pleased with Mother’s enthusiastic applause.
Notty, Little, and puppet friends at the end of our show that December
Our puppet performances were homey-bomey with a simple set-up. These are the easy steps we followed to “build” our stage. I’d love to hear your better ideas.
- Hammer two small nails into the sides of the door frame, so the nail holes won’t show later.
- Measure the distance between the nails.
- Attach 2 large safety pins that same distance apart along one edge of a tablecloth (or small quilt or blanket).
- Slip one safety pin over each nail.
Voila! A puppet stage. Ray and I used Little Golden Books for scripts. Our cast of characters for the book Jingle Bells was so large that we had a few stuffed animals stand in as puppets. We also needed a horse to pull our “one-horse open sleigh,” so we used a stick horse (well, actually ours is a stick mule because Ray is from Columbia, Tennessee, which has given itself the nickname “Mule Capital of the World,” but that’s another story).
That was a fun night with four generations being silly together. After all:
There is an appointed time for everything.
And there is . . . a time to laugh . . .
Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4
I have two sisters (I’m in the middle) and one of my fondest memories growing up is performing the Christmas story for our parents. Frequently we used puppets.
My parents also were SS superintendents and they used giant puppets in Jr church with about 200 kids.
Thanks so much for sharing this, Charlene! I did puppet shows for my kids when they were little, and then we did shows for kindergarten classes at the local school, at the library, nursing homes, in our co-op group, everywhere! I’ve always told moms that you can teach anything using puppets.
For several years, every time kids came to our house, they would be drawn into doing a puppet show. We did them behind the could, made one out of an old window, bought them, etc. The kids did a shadow puppet show one Thanksgiving that I recorded- they were so young, but did a great job!!