Shadow Puppets

Is your child a miniature Spielberg with a big imagination and a head full of stories? Indulge his creativity with a cast full of shadow puppets ready to put on a show! The puppet templates are all provided, leaving more time for your creative kid to plan his epic puppet production.

What You Need:

• Craft knife
• Tape
• Craft sticks
• Flashlight
• White card stock
• Pencil
• Animal shadow puppets
• Bear shadow puppet
• Horse shadow puppet
• Sea creature shadow puppets
• Tortoise and the hare shadow puppets
• Three little pigs shadow puppets
• Moose shadow puppets

What You Do:

1. Look through all the shadow puppets with your child. Print out his favorite on white card stock. Remind him that he can play with all the animal puppets if he wants, but that he'll have to start out with just one.
2. For the best results, use a craft knife to cut out each animal and prop from the card stock. This is an adults only! Craft knives can be dangerous in young hands.
3. Have your child use tape to attach a craft stick to the back of each puppet.
4. Let him turn off all the lights in the room.
5. Help him set up a flashlight on the other side of the room that points directly at a blank wall. The blank wall will be his puppets' stage.
6. Have him experiment with poking his shadow puppets in between the flashlight and the wall. Does he see the cool shadows on the wall?
7. Challenge him to figure out a way to make his puppets on the wall appear very big -- and then very tiny. Why does he think the size of the shadows change even though the size of the paper puppets do not?
8. Help him create a story to go along with his favorite shadow puppets.
9. Encourage his imagination even more by setting up a shadow puppet creation station. Your child doesn't have to be limited by the puppets linked above. Have him use a pencil to sketch out different types of animals and props directly on the white card stock. After that, you can use the craft knife to turn his drawings into puppets!
10. For a musical twist, help your child combine his shadow puppet play with a soundtrack. Go through some of his favorite songs to find the tune that best compliments his puppet production.
11. Once your child has perfected his puppets, story and soundtrack, help him perform his play for his family or friends.