Home made table top puppet theatre and puppets

This week I have been working on ideas for activities to go along with a farmyard story book I will be using in some of my sessions from the Book Start packs that are given out to all families within Wales by their Health Visitors at the 18 month - 2 year check.

A simple idea that children can get involved with is to help make a table top puppet theatre.  They can help choose which theme they would like for their puppet theatre, e.g. farm yard, zoo, jungle etc as well as choosing the animals they would like to include so that it's personal to them.

You could choose some colouring pages together for them to colour and then laminate their finished work to use as the puppets for the show.

I chose a farm yard theme to go alongside the book.  I found a picture of a red barn on the internet with window sections that I could cut out for more options to play.

After printing, I cut it out and laminated it  to make it last.  I then stuffed an empty biscuit box with shredded paper, covered it in red paper and used sello tape to stick it securely to the laminated picture.  This helps to make the theatre stand up and not fall down.

I then chose a varied selection of farm animal pictures to print off.  After laminating them I then attached lolly pop sticks securely to the back of each of them.  Notice that I have attached the sticks horizontally due to the space available to play.

A really quick puppet theatre to put together and have fun with.  Lots of opportunities to use as a prop to tell stories with and sing with too.  How about 'Old MacDonald have a farm' or 'I went to visit a farm one day'.