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Especially For Teachers |
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Puppetry
Instruction and Tips |
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Table of Contents:
Why Puppets?
Tips
Direct teaching
Puppet Manipulation, Movement, and Voices
More tips on Puppetry
Notes for
special audiences
Great links
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Why use puppets?
1.Puppets get and hold attention of both adults and children.
2. Several puppets can be worked any one person.
3. Puppets are fun to see and work.
4. Are small and easy to carry.
5. Are easy to use.
6. Don’t need a stage or scenery to be interesting
7. Puppets can:
a) Talk about things we are uncomfortable talking about.
b) Help start us thinking and talking.
c) Share information and facts.
d) Be a person that represents an extreme trait- Like “Dirty Mary”.
e) Be a tooth or germ to help us see things from a different viewpoint.
f) Be a person that exemplifies a bad example.
g) Be a person that exemplifies a good example.
h) Be the other person to help us walk in someone else's shoes.
i) Give the puppeteer a chance to open up and share his\her feelings.
j) Can ask hard or embarrassing questions that the audience might think
but could not ask, and we can talk to the puppet, so the audience doesn’t need to be embarrassed.
Tips:
Use small audiences
Voices must be loud and clear ( audience
cant see faces to try to lipread)
Puppets must be durable and long lasting.
Be sure you look at the puppet not at the audience when you are having a conversation
with the puppet.
Keep scenery simple
Direct
Teaching with Puppets:
1. We can work the puppet without a stage or other characters by
putting a puppet on
one hand and talking to it and making it talk
back.
2. The puppet can then ask question that the audience would like to ask.
3. We can tell the puppet the answer, and the audience can hear.
4. Then the audience will know the information by "overhearing" it rather than just being told.
5. The Puppet can also ask hard or embarrassing questions (that the audience might think but could or would not ask) and we can tell the puppet what we could
not say directly to the people without hurting their feelings.
6. When you are making the puppet talk, be sure you look at the puppet. Then the audience will look at the puppet, too, rather than at you.
Ideas to teach with puppets:
Foreign language
Numbers, alphabet, spelling
Science, Social Studies, Health,
Nature, Manners, History
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Puppet Manipulation:
I. Character Creation:
A. Getting used
to what the puppet can do:
Make your puppet do the following by
moving your fingers (hand puppet) or
working arms, etc. to get the desired
effect. If at first you don’t make it work,
keep trying. It may be helpful to use a
mirror to see what your face does to create
these expressions of emotion.
Smile frown, show surprise, be surprised, be
angry, be thoughtful, study something, cry,
sneeze, faint.
B.
Communication, action only:
Say “yes”, “no”
Reluctantly, Reproachfully, excitedly
Come here
Mine, That’s mine!
Show appreciation (clap, cheer)
Show direction, someone went
Get someone’s attention (wave)
See someone of opposite sex – nice
See someone you want to avoid
Look for something you lost
Read a book or a newspaper
Yawn
C. Movement:
Using a table, the a back of
a chair or your other arm, do the following movements with the puppet.
Walk across the stage; hop, skip, creep, run, strut, skate, etc.
Begin walking, trip and fall, pick yourself up and walk on.
Begin walking, stumble
Fall off a cliff.
II. Character Creation: Voices
A. It is usually ore effective if you use a voice different than your own for the
puppet.
You should be able to create several voices for different puppets.
Try the following exercises:
Voice changes : Pitch
Try making your voice high, into falsetto if possible.
Now low, bottom of your range
Voice Changes: Rate
Try fast , slow, and very slow, or very fast
Voice changes: Other Variations
Try an accent, Western, English, Southern, etc.
Try an old man, child, etc.
B.
More Practice:
1. Create the following voices for the suggested characters just using your own voice.
2. Mouse, Monster, Small girl, Bully boy, ringmaster, lion
3. You are now ready to put puppet and voice together.
4. Puppets mouth opens with each syllable rather than closes as is the natural tendency.
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Carolyn’s points on puppetry:
Sexy or sophisticated: throw head back as
if to move hair out of eyes.
Crazy: twitching the head back and forth
constantly
Sleepy: Nodding head up and down slowly
Something sour: mouth puckers
Laughing: mouth open head shakes up and down sometime place hand to open mouth.
In love: hand to heart eyes look up.
Worried or scared: fingers in mouth
Impatient: fingers rolled on table
Disgust: hands put over eyes.
Sprucing up: lick fingers and smooth hair
Puppet conversation: the puppets need to look at each other not at the audience
Making puppets:
Big bushy eyebrows give a mean look
Crossed eyes give a "stupid" look
Notes for Preschool audiences:
Puppets are real to children you must be
careful
Not too violent
Not so much fantasy that they cant relate or understand
Don’t leave the puppet around without a hand
Stories should be short and simple
Puppets are excellent teaching tools because they hold the children’s attention longer.
Notes for Elementary school audiences:
Children love puppets and plays.
They are full of fantasy.
They love to do their own puppet shows, but don’t stick to a script
Still use simple puppets for younger grades.
More complex (moving mouth) for older grades.
Good for shy students.
Notes for Secondary School
audiences:
Becomes more of a theatrical art. The
students want to perform rather than watch.
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