130--Finger Puppets--Grades 3 & up

Note: I’ve made these at childrens' birthday parties, making them at beginning, playing games while they dry and then painting them before the cake. They’re ready to take home by the end of the party. If you set up the lesson correctly, it’s really not messy.

If you or other grade teachers are teaching writing or drama to children, making puppets of characters can be a strong curricular addition.

Aims:
To explore the use of plaster craft
To create original puppet characters
To use puppets in student-produced puppet show

Materials: First Session: plaster craft cut into strips (do this over a garbage can, if possible to avoid dust); coffee cans filled with water 1” from top; vaseline; thick styrofoam from packaging with old pencils pushed in for easy drying; optional: aluminum foil/pipe cleaners or other easily bendable wire
Second Session: paint (tempera or acrylic); brushes; water cans; optional: feathers, googley eyes

Motivation: There are many ways to approach this lesson with children. If you have a few puppets already made, you could start the lesson with a puppet show about making puppets. Kids adore it when you make different voices for the characters. Or you could talk a bit about how plays are written and have your students write playlets (either in groups or individually) of their own. The important thing is to have at least two characters that can interact.

Teach your students how to make a beginning, middle and end to their plays and have them keep it short. (Kids’ plays can go on forever. A little editing here will be a good thing.)

In any case, the students should know ahead of time what character or characters they are making.

Vocabulary: character, dialogue, villain, hero/heroine, three-dimensional

Procedure: Gather your students around a large table, making sure that everyone can see. I have everyone take a step backwards to make the oval big enough so no one is blocked. If kids lean forward, people behind him are blocked.

I put a bit of vaseline on the finger I’m going to make the puppet on--usually the non-dominant index finger. Dip a plaster strip in the can and stroke it to remove the holes. Wrap LIGHTLY around finger and repeat two more times. Don’t make it too long on your finger and don’t make it too tight. It will harden quickly and you don’t want it to get struck! Explain this to your students. (So far, I’ve never had a student get one stuck.)

Scrunch a dampened piece or two or three into a ball to make a head and press it down. You have to be very patient doing this, since until it dries, it will tend to fall off. Add a snout, ears, paws, hind legs, a tail, etc. Work quickly so that wet sticks to wet better.

If you want to make something more complicated such as a butterfly, you need to use pipe cleaners to wrap around your form. Fold a piece of aluminum foil over the shapes to make it more solid and then cover with the plaster pieces. Make sure that you “activate” the pieces as you work.

When ready to paint, encourage the students to make a base coat on the sections and then to add details. You don't want little flecks of white showing through. When dry, students may use sharpie markers to draw fine details, if you like. Gluing on feathers, glitter, eyeballs, etc. is also an option. I use a hot glue gun for this, monitoring the students well, depending on their age.

Reflection: Follow-up: Make a puppet theater out of a large appliance box for students to use in the classroom. Add a real curtain.