How to stage your own puppet show

It's pretty much a given that children pay more attention to stories when there are visual cues like pictures or animations to flesh out the narrative.  Staging your own puppet show is a great way to get your child involved in actually telling the story as well.

What you need:

• Ironing board
• Large tablecloth, or your own homemade puppet theatre
• Portable music player
• Some Cds of favourite songs
• A simple storybook or nursery rhyme to read from
• Puppets
   

Number of players:
2+

Activity:

Make your puppet stage:

An ironing board makes an ideal puppet stage as you can adjust it to any height plus it's long and shallow. Put the table cloth over the ironing board to conceal what is going on backstage.

Organise your backstage area:

A well-organised backstage makes for a better show, so organise the puppets and props in the order that they will be needed. Put props in one box and puppets in another so things don't get too confusing.

Keep it simple:

Reading a story aloud while your child acts out the narrative with the puppets is the simplest format to use.

Choose a favourite picture book or nursery rhyme and use that as your narrative. A simple story like Goldilocks and the Three Bears works well as there are only four characters and most of the action takes place in the bears' home.

Notes:

• To make your show really professional, have some music ready to play while scene and puppet changeovers are taking place.
• A song to finish and start your show could also be good idea.