Puppet Drama Instructions

An Imagination Station Activity brought to FEN by National PTA®

Children can create a "This Is Your Life" puppet show, devising dialogue and homemade puppets based on their own research and creativity. Guide children through the following steps:

1. Investigate a fascinating animal. Sketch pictures of its habitat; predators; creatures that have a symbiotic (cooperative) relationship with it; its prey, food, or its habits. These sketches can record the form, texture, pattern, and coloration of the animal and its habitat.

2. Construct puppets with exaggerated features to represent your animal and other animals having a relationship with it. The animal's food, prey, or other important elements of its habitat can also be crafted as puppets to add detail. Think how puppet features and expression might be exaggerated to make its "character" apparent at a glance. For example, a hungry, meat-eating carnivore might have exaggerated teeth and an open mouth. A cheerful bullfrog might be characterized by large eyes and a smiling mouth. Family members, friends, and classmates will enjoy working with you to make some of the puppets. Puppets can be made from a variety of materials, such as socks, paper bags, wooden spoons, or modeling compounds.

3. Conduct a "This is Your Life" interview program with your animal as the "guest star." Another puppet becomes the Master of Ceremonies and invites the other animal puppets to tell their stories about encounters with the guest star. These stories can be sane or silly. You and your family, friends, or classmates can invent ideas for scripts or improvise the dialogue.

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