Learn how to create a do-it-yourself puppet theater. In this case, characters can not only be sewn, dazzled, but also made from plastic spoons, wooden sticks.
DIY finger puppet theater
If you want to develop the baby's fine motor skills, speech, thinking and just be able to cheer up the whole family, then turn the room into a temple of art. To do this, you need to know how to make your own finger puppet theater.
For this you will need:
- felt;
- threads;
- scissors.
As you can see, the characters of the Turnip fairy tale are cut out very simply. Each hero consists of two identical parts. But on one side you need to embroider facial features with threads. You can make them and cut them out of dark felt, and then glue or sew on.
Fold 2 blanks of the character with the wrong sides, sew along the edge on a typewriter or thread with a needle on your hands.
To make a beard for your grandfather, wind the threads around your fingers in several rows, cut them on one side. Fold these identical threads in half and sew the beard into place. But what the heroes of the fairy tale "Ryaba Hen" can be like.
Cut out your grandfather's beard and bangs, and cut your grandmother's hair out of gray felt. It will also help create a mouse with a long tail. These are the dolls you can sew for a puppet theater. If the baby will wear them, cut them out so that they are the size of his fingers. If the play will be shown for children by adults, then fabric dolls should be slightly larger.
Check out another interesting idea. This can be a home puppet theater for staging the fairy tale "Turnip". In kindergarten, it is better to have larger characters so that the whole group can see them from afar. But you can do this by taking:
- modeling paste (better than Jovi, which does not need to be fired, it hardens in air);
- yellow and green Jovi Patcolor paste;
- acrylic paints;
- brushes;
- felt-tip pens;
- stacks.
- Let's sculpt the grandfather first. Take a 2x3 cm piece of pasta, roll a sausage out of it, form a cylinder. You should have a semblance of a nesting doll with a body and head, and at the bottom there will be a notch for a finger.
- Sculpt the handles separately, attach them to the body. But mark the facial features, beard, mustache with a stack.
- By the same principle, fashion a grandmother, granddaughter and animals. When these characters are dry, paint them with acrylics.
- For a turnip, roll a ball of yellow paste, pull it out slightly from above, insert green plastic tops here, fix.
When sculpting with paste, you will see that it dries quickly in the air, so periodically moisten your fingers with water. This is how you get a finger puppet theater, with your own hands a child can play the tale "Turnip" or come up with his own story with some of these characters.
DIY table theater
If you want to have a tabletop theater with paper dolls, then enlarge the following image. Print it on a color printer on thick paper. If this is not possible, attach a sheet of thin paper to the screen, transfer the outlines to it. Then place on cardboard, draw outlines, have the child decorate the characters with crayons or paints. All that remains is to cut out the images, glue each one on the side and glue the top of the head to the head.
And here are some more templates by which puppets for the theater are easily made. With your own hands or, giving the blanks to the child, cut them along the contours, glue them in pairs.
If you glue a small rectangular sheet of colored paper on the side, you get a small tube. It should be such that it fits well on the finger. Glue the ears, nose, eyes, front paws to the workpiece, and you get the hero of the finger puppet theater.
These characters can be crafted from the most unexpected materials. See how to turn plastic spoons into stage heroes.
To make these toys for a puppet show, take:
- plastic spoons;
- colored paper;
- scissors;
- ready-made plastic eyes;
- glue gun;
- the cloth;
- narrow tape, scissors.
Then follow these instructions:
- Using a glue gun, glue the finished eyes to the convex side of the spoon.
- Turn a piece of fabric tied with a ribbon into a dress. For a male character, it is enough to glue a bow tie around his neck.
- Cut strips of colored paper with a fringe on one side, glue this hair. They will also be replaced by pieces of colored cotton wool.
Everything, the children's puppet theater at home is ready. Take a large cardboard box, cover it with colored paper, turn it over. Make a slot in the bottom with a knife, insert spoons here and lead the dolls along these holes, as if along a path.
Other characters are controlled in the same way, for the creation of which you will need:
- ice cream sticks;
- children's magazines;
- glue;
- scissors.
Let the child cut out pictures of people, animals from a magazine or from an old book, stick them on sticks.
If you want to make another tabletop theater, then milk bottle caps can be used. Plastic cups for yogurt.
Glue paper fairy tale characters to the back of these items, and you can act out old plots with them or come up with new ones. The background is created from a large sheet of cardboard, which is painted in the theme.
How to make a screen for a puppet theater?
This is an essential attribute of the puppet theater. Check out the simplest options:
- Cover the hole under the table with a cloth by tying its two corners to the top of one and the other leg. The child sits on the back of the floor and guides the characters to the level of the table top - just above it.
- Take an old curtain or sheet. Gather any of these canvases on a rope, tie the ends of the thread on one and the other side of the doorway. Make a rectangular cutout in the center at the top of any of these canvases. It should be at such a height that you cannot see the child or adult sitting behind the curtain, who are playing the role of puppeteers.
- A desktop screen is made for the finger theater. The easiest way is to make it out of cardboard. The box is taken. It must be disassembled, pasted over with wallpaper or colored paper, bend 2 sidewalls so that a canvas of sufficient size remains in the center. A cutout is made in it, through which the puppeteer shows finger toys.
Here's how to make a plywood screen. For her you will need:
- plywood;
- jigsaw;
- cloth or a piece of wallpaper;
- glue;
- small door hinges.
Manufacturing instruction:
- Based on the presented dimensions, cut 3 blanks from plywood: a central one and 2 sidewalls. Cover them with a cloth.
- When the canvas is dry, attach the loops to the designated areas so that you can close the screen for the puppet theater and fold it.
See how to make a cardboard screen in order to be able to show performances with mittens, gloves, cane puppets. It should be such that the puppeteer fits there freely, standing up to his full height. If the performance is shown by children of different ages, then the tall ones will kneel down, placing a pillow under them.
In order to make a screen, you will need:
- PVA glue;
- rope or string;
- carton boxes;
- wallpaper;
- stationery knife;
- awl;
- roulette;
- wide brush;
- long ruler;
- rag.
A do-it-yourself screen for a puppet theater is crafted as follows:
- The drawing is given for adolescents or adults whose height is 1 m 65 cm. If you are making a screen for children, reduce this figure.
- To make it strong, make it three layers. To do this, glue the second on one large sheet of cardboard, then on the other side - the third. Apply PVA glue with a wide brush. Thus, you will make the frontal part - the apron.
- The side elements are also made in three layers, but the folds, which you then glue to the apron, must consist of one layer.
- Connect the parts by gluing them together. When the glue is dry, sew in these places with a cord, having previously made holes in the attachment points. Attach the top arch in the same way.
It remains to cover the screen with wallpaper of a dull color so that they do not distract from the theatrical performance.
We make doll gloves with our own hands
These can be seen in a real puppet theater. Dolls put gloves on the hand. By bending your fingers, you can make the fabric character tilt his head, move his hands.
Children's puppet theater on hand will have many characters if you use the proposed template.
But it is not necessary to create all the heroes at once. Let's start with two - bunnies and a pig. Having understood how to make such dolls gloves, you can sew others, thereby, gradually replenishing your theater.
If you then make human dolls, you can make a hairstyle from fabric or from threads.
The thickness of the character's neck should be such that the puppeteer sticks his middle and index fingers here to control the hero of the play. Before sewing theater puppets, place a puppeteer glove on the repetitive pattern to decide if the base fits. If not, then increase or decrease it. You can do without a glove by placing the puppeteer's hand on the base pattern. Please note that the character will not be static, so you need to add a little on all sides for a free fit, so that the fabric of the hero of the action does not stretch while controlling him.
So, here's what you need to sew a glove doll:
- artificial fur and / or plain fabric;
- tracing paper or transparent paper or cellophane;
- a pen;
- scissors;
- threads;
- buttons for the eyes.
Enlarge this pattern. Attach a transparent material (cellophane, paper or tracing paper) to it, redraw. Cut along the contour.
Place the piece on a folded fabric, cut with a 7 mm seam allowance. For a bunny, it is better to take a gray fabric or white fur, for a piglet - pink.
If you want to draw facial features, ponytails, palms, hooves, then do it now, before stitching both halves of each character. Use fabric dyes that won't fade when washed. If there are none, then use watercolor, gouache, but first apply a PVA solution to the fabric, paint this place after it dries, but use a minimum of water. When the paint is dry, lay another layer of PVA on top to secure it.
But it is best to embroider the nose, mouth, pulling these sections over the hoop or stitching blanks of the corresponding colors and buttons-eyes.
Cut out a white fur shirt-front for the doll's bunny gloves, sew its triangular part to the front half, and a semicircular one, in the form of a collar, to the back. A tail is stitched to the same back side, and white legs with or without pink claws are attached to both parts.
When small details are sewn, you can grind both halves of the doll on the wrong side on a typewriter or on the face - on the hands. In the latter case, use an “over-the-edge” seam or take a translucent tape and wrap it around the side seam.
In this technique, other glove dolls are created, for example, a piglet.
When the sides have been sewn on all sides, hem the bottom. The characters' ears can be stuffed with cotton wool or padding polyester. Fill the pig's nose with any of these materials, only then sew this "patch" to the head. Make an applique on his cheeks, giving them a blooming look. It remains to sew a few yellow threads between the ears, and another doll glove is ready.
Now you know how to sew characters for a puppet theater, if you want to see it also, then check out the following stories.
