Flying Puppets

Paper, glue, wire, and a stick are all it takes to make puppets that move their wings up and down! My students loved making these magical moving animals in about an hour.  I found that a bamboo skewer and jewelry works best for an almost invisible results, but we also tried it with supplies that we had readily available such as straws and pipe cleaners. 

For a bird you need to cut out the shape of a bird body, a tale and wings from card stock. The til can slide into the back of the bird using a slit and the wings can either be added with a slit at an angle on the back of the bird, or folded and glued to the back of the bird. A small strip needs to be glued in a ring that fits snuggly around the straw (or dowel, or skewer). I found it works best if you glue two wires or piper cleaners to the strip before winding it up and gluing the end to the paper cylinder.

Then the other ends of the wire or pipe cleaners can be glued to the wings of the bird or butterfly with hot glue. This can also be done with a strip of cardstock that matches the wings and is glued on either end, so that wire can slide into it on the wing. That can be done with Elmer's so that each kid can make their own.

Most students chose to make butterflies. This only required 1/4 a piece of card stock, folded in half and then cut to make two butterfly wings (be sure to not cut on the fold side.) Some students added bodies to the center with wire antennae. At Jim Henson's funeral, there was a cathedral full of loved ones waving butterfly puppets in the air. He is the most famous puppeteer ever. We watched PBS's Jim Henson documentary that was part of the "In Their Own Words" series. This project was a perfect way to bridge our performing arts related projects and our paper toy projects for my Careers in Art Unit.

 

Puppetry Arts in the classroom

The last couple of weeks, I have watched stoned faced students erupt into giggles when being hugged and kissed by puppets. For blind children, it is important to get to touch the mouth of a hand puppet as it opens and closes, and shake hands with a puppet arm. They each got to try out several kinds of puppets and listen to silly my voices. I showed an episode of the "Muppets" and talked about how someone has to invent each character and make it by hand.


When it came to art production, my elementary students began at the beginning, which for me is the paper bag puppet. No childhood is complete without making at least one.

It didn't take long for me to sew dozens of little finger puppet bodies, which these kids took to new heights. It's important to discuss lots of ideas and offer a variety of materials before students come up with a solution that will work for them. I was surprised at some of the ideas they had, like feather for hair and a goat-tee, or a yarn loop to make a girl's hula hoop.

Older students watched power point presentations on puppets and video clips of amazing giant marionettes to ancient shadow puppets. They then made their own shadow puppets with two pieces of black paper, wire, and metallic markers. Dowels and brads work too for moving parts. But I am saving our dowels for another project.

The marionette project used paper towel rolls (we still have plenty left over from all of our toilet paper roll crafts), paint, string, and Popsicle sticks.

Puppets and marionettes marry visual arts with literacy and performance art. We wrapped up our unit by taking a trip to the Center for Puppetry Arts to watch an amazing performance about "The Diary of Anne Frank."