Simple Puppets

Supplies:

1. Paper
2. Scissors
3. Tape
4. Crayons, markers or coloured pencils if you wish to colour the puppets
5. Simple Puppet patterns (or draw your own)

Instructions:

1. Choose a bible story and read the passage from the Bible.
2. With this in mind, make a list of characters needed to tell the story.  It is best to keep the number of characters small.
3. Draw faces or simple characters on small pieces of paper leaving a space to the left and right of the character.
4. Roll the paper like a small tube around your finger and attach it in the back to form the finger puppet.  Do this for each character.
5. Move the characters around as you tell the story so that the characters are acting out the story like a play.

Adaptations:

1. Attach the puppet to the back of a plastic spoon, onto a craft stick or a pencil instead of making the finger puppet.
2. Tell the story and then guide the children in making their own finger puppets.
3. Let the children who arrive early join you in making the puppets that you will be using to tell the story later in the class.
4. Make the characters as elaborate as you want.  You may wish to add scenery like sand to walk on, trees and bushes, or houses.  If you teach often, you might want to start your own collection.  These are easy to file.
5. Instead of making the characters in the Bible story, you or the children could make characters that represent children in general or even the children themselves.  Guide the children in facing scenarios that are applications of the story you have taught.  For example, the “children” could be playing on the playground when they see someone being a bully.  What should they do?

In the video, I used the story Paul’s Nephew Uncovers a Plot as an example.