Bringing Folkmanis® Puppets To Life
With puppet in hand proceed to the nearest mirror to try it on for size.
By following these few tips, you’ll soon convince everyone that you’re
a natural puppeteer!
- Insert your thumb in one paw, and the little finger in the other. This leaves three fingers for the manipulation of the nose and/or mouth. Note: even if you are right-handed, you might find your left hand more relaxed for puppeteering (or vice-versa.) This is a common experience, and one that can’t be explained.
- With the animal on one hand, hold it in the crook of your other arm. This gives your puppet a nice nest and conceals the secret of your participation. Remember that nothing looks more awkward (or unconvincing) than a puppet perched on the end of an extended arm and hand.
- If your puppet has a snout (bears, raccoons) two twitching fingers will produce a wiggling nose.
- Have your puppet crawl up your shoulder, tug at your sleeve, scratch, twist around, or hide in the crook of your arm.
- For animals with tails, nest the puppet on your free arm, extending your fingers of that arm toward the elbow of your “puppet arm”. Position your thumb under the base of the tail and move it up and down to swish the tail.
- The small panda and cats look particularly endearing on their backs, in the crook of your arm. From this position, have them gaze at their audience, occasionally hiding their eyes behind their paws, scratching, or nesting down for a snooze.
- Props like rubber balls, cups etc, will awaken the natural curiosity of your animal.
- Insert your whole hand through the hidden sleeve of the larger, cuddly animals for animated head action.
- The above article has been reproduced with the kind permission of Folkmanis.com.
Living Puppets®
- Large character puppets have working mouths and tongues and glove hands and arms that can be used for signing. The puppeteer provides motion and action and can give the puppet a voice.
- With both animal and figurative puppets, it is vital that you plan the puppet’s entrances and exits, don’t let the children see you putting on the puppet or leave it lying around.
- Bring the puppet to life it must always be doing something, make sure the children see it animated from the start and the same when it leaves. If it looks at the class they will watch it. Try getting the puppet to look from one child to another especially when they are speaking.
- Maintaining eye contact with both the puppet and the audience is essential, however if you want the puppet to mischievously ignore you, let it avoid looking you in the eye.
- You need to consider about what kind of personality the puppet will have, how he will act, and what he will say. It is important to make the puppet seem like a real person especially if he is going to be a frequent visitor to the classroom. Give him an age, name, and tell the children where he lives etc, give him specific traits that the children will remember and they will look forward to his next appearance with excitement.
- You don’t need to be an experienced puppeteer. It is not always necessary to give your puppet the power of speech, you can say it is shy or has lost its voice and let the puppet nod and whisper in your ear instead. If you do let your puppet talk it is important to synchronize your words with its mouth, the children will be looking at the puppet’s mouth not yours, and they will want to believe that it is the puppet that is alive and talking.
- When reading stories let the puppet sit on your knee, maybe turning the pages or just attentively listening. You can make the puppet show various expressions and reactions throughout, bringing story time to life.
- Use the puppet to make "mistakes" when pronouncing or spelling words and give the children the opportunity to participate and correct the puppet. This will place less pressure on the individual child but at the same time reinforces learning.