Theater is a magical world, which is based on an action that is understandable and close to children, such as a game. The sooner a child gets acquainted with the theatrical art, which can quietly teach and develop, the richer his emotions will be.
You can bring a child to the theater for the first time at the age of 2-3 years. And then make interesting crafts on the theme of “theater” and play at home or in kindergarten. All kids like theatrical play.
Important! Schoolchildren will be able to better understand what they saw during the performance if after the performance they make a craft with their own hands and try to reflect their experiences in it.
Puppet show
Puppet theater helps develop a child's speech, imagination, and fine motor skills. Every parent can make a home puppet theater with their own hands, especially if the kids take part in the exciting process.
A puppet theater is made from various available materials, such as:
- paper;
- disposable plastic tableware;
- felt;
- toilet paper rolls;
- socks;
- round cheese boxes.
Do-it-yourself dolls in a home theater can:
- put on a finger;
- put on the hand;
- be stationary.
Felt
This dense fabric is great for making finger puppet theaters. You will need:
- multi-colored felt;
- scissors, thread, needle;
- cardboard.
Felt dolls should be the size of a child's finger, so you need to attach the child's hand and trace it. Let the child draw the characters himself, mom or dad will just have to make a pattern from this, transfer it to felt and sew the parts. Elements of the dolls' faces or muzzles can be glued on.
It’s easy to sew felt theater characters by watching the video with the master class.
The scenery for such a theater is made using felt sheets of A4 format.
Progress:
- Draw a pattern diagram of the scenery (forest, house, field).
- Cut out all the details and sew them onto the front side of the felt base sheet.
- Sew two sheets together on three sides: a base with decoration and a backing sheet of A4 felt without decorations.
- Insert a sheet of cardboard cut to size through the unsewn bottom side. The cardboard should protrude 5-7 cm from the bottom.
- Fold the excess cardboard to make a stand.
Paper
This is the easiest way to make a do-it-yourself puppet theater.
Option 1
Draw fairy tale characters on a piece of thick paper. Cut them out and glue them on the wrong side onto cocktail tubes, ice cream sticks, and pencils. Cut out the front side of a children's lunch box to make a screen. Make a slot in the lower part where sticks with heroes will be inserted.
Attach a ribbon to the top of the box and the theater is ready. The child can hang the box around their neck or on a doorknob and perform the show.
A master class will help you create such a theater:
Option 2
Glue together a tube from paper - the torso of a theatrical character. The size depends on whether the doll will be worn on the hand or on the finger.
Glue the muzzle/face elements onto the tube.
Option 3
You can take ready-made toilet paper tubes and decorate them using colored paper.
Choosing a piece
You will need to decide in advance on the characters of your theatrical production in order to find suitable templates for the paper finger theater. Most often, for the very first children's productions, teachers and psychologists advise taking simple, long- familiar fairy tales and stories. On the Internet you can often find templates for finger theater made of paper for such fairy tales as Turnip, Teremok, Kolobok, Masha and the Bear, Three Little Pigs and so on /
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In any case, you should take for the game a work or story from a book that is familiar to your child. Perhaps you have even been to a real puppet theater, have already seen some kind of play, and the child liked the plot.
Glove
The glove doll should fit snugly on the hand; to do this, having determined the comfortable position of the fingers in the glove, a pattern is made.
To make a doll - the Russian jester Parsley - you will need:
- fleece for the body in 3 colors;
- filler;
- yarn;
- modeling paste or plasticine;
- scissors.
Progress:
- The head is formed from modeling paste or plasticine. A cardboard tube according to the size of your finger is inserted into the middle. Yarn hair is glued.
- Using the mitten pattern, make Parsley's clothes, sew them, insert cardboard tubes into the handles. They are filled with filler and secured with glue.
- Sew a cap and glue it on your head.
Video on how to sew a glove doll:
Important! To sew a puppet theater, it will take time and patience, but the result will delight the kids - their favorite fairy tales will come to life at home, and parents and their children will be able to come up with new exciting stories.
Making hand puppets
You can make dolls for your home theater yourself. You can sew them from felt or fabric. Dolls made from ordinary socks turn out to be unusual.
Felt doll
To make such a doll, you will need a sketch of the doll, pieces of multi-colored felt, thread and needle, glue, and thin cardboard.
Doll making process:
- Creating a pattern. The sketch of the doll is redrawn on cardboard and then cut out. In this way you can make the main and small parts of the doll.
- The doll's details are transferred to pieces of felt. The color of the felt is chosen independently. For example, a hare can be gray or white. The clothes of the main characters can be varied. Everything is done according to your taste or the taste of the child.
- The parts of the puppet theater are cut out.
- The dolls are assembled. Take the main part for the doll made of felt. Then you need to sew other parts to it using a buttonhole stitch. Parts that cannot be sewn are glued with glue.
- The parts are sewn on the edge using a buttonhole stitch.
Sock doll
Materials required for manufacturing:
- Unnecessary sock
- Cardboard
- Thick threads or yarn
- Small piece of fabric
- Threads
- Buttons
- Needle
- Glue
The sock can be of completely different colors. Choose at your own discretion. You can ask to choose a sock for making a child’s doll.
Manufacturing process:
- Making a mouth for a toy. A rectangle 5 cm wide and 18 cm long is cut out of cardboard. Then this rectangle is folded in half. The corners are rounded along the width. Using this fabric blank, the inside of the doll's mouth is cut out.
- The toe of the sock is cut off. The edges are cut along the contour of the workpiece.
- The cardboard blank is glued to the inside of the sock using glue.
- A piece of fabric cut out for the mouth is glued to the top of the cardboard.
- Now you need to make a hairstyle for the doll. Take yarn or thick threads and wrap it around your hand 3-4 times. Then you need to tie it in the middle and cut the ends of the yarn. Then this hairstyle is sewn onto the doll.
- To make eyes for a doll, take 2 buttons and sew them onto the sock. The eyes can be made from cardboard, painted and glued on. You can even buy ready-made eyes in the store and glue them on with glue.
On the topic of theater, you can make a lot of different fakes yourself together with your child. The manufacturing process will captivate both parents and children. These fakes can be made from available materials. It is not necessary to buy the necessary items in the store. The main thing is to turn on your imagination and start creating.
Sock theater
Sock characters are funny, because on a long neck they only have a head with an opening mouth. Geese, snakes and fantasy characters are made from socks.
Interesting theater-themed crafts can be made from plastic spoons, empty plastic cans and much more. Competition at school
School crafts on a theater theme can be made using different techniques.
Option 1
A three-dimensional applique is suitable for a school competition.
You will need:
- colored paper and cardboard;
- velvet fabric;
- glue, stapler.
Progress:
- Print the facade of the Bolshoi Theater and the ballerina.
- Fold the A4 sheet in half, stick a printout of the facade on the top, decorate with columns made of paper (screw it onto a tube).
- Decorate the inside of the folded sheet with velvet, and stick a ballerina figurine on top.
Option 2
A miniature theater with your own hands will attract the attention of spectators who will examine the crafts.
You will need:
- small rectangular box;
- fabric, twisted cord;
- chenille wire;
- plasticine, threads;
- decor – voluminous stars, sparkles.
Progress:
- Decorate the box as a stage. To do this, cut off one of the wide sides of the box to create a stage. The inside is covered with white paper, the floor is made brown or green.
- A small horizontal curtain is placed above the fabric stage; the side parts of the curtains are decorated with fabric. The folds are draped and secured with a twisted cord. They also cover the top of the box to disguise the connection between the fabric and the cardboard.
- The body of the characters is made of plastic, plasticine, self-hardening mass; arms and legs are made separately from the same materials. They are attached to the figurine with chenille wire. Threads are attached to all parts of the figurine, which are led up into the wings, where they are secured. The result is a puppet figurine.
Option 3
Many schoolchildren are interested in origami. This is an excellent material for creating crafts for a competition.
You will need light green, blue and purple stripes, a ready-made mask, glitter glue, and acrylic paints.
Progress:
- Design a mask. Draw the eye in black and the mouth in blue. Around one eye, make fancy patterns of blue and purple colors. Add glitter.
- Roll paper into rolls and make petals.
- Place a mask on the base—a sheet of cardboard—and place rolls and petals around it. Decorate with sparkles.
Option 4
Almost every home has a lot of scraps; they will be useful to make a bright panel on a theatrical theme.
Having determined the plot, they make a full-size diagram of the future panel and select scraps of different colors and textures. Elements are cut out from them and sewn on by hand or by machine.
The combination of flat and three-dimensional elements on a panel looks interesting; knitted or sewn parts are suitable for this.
Option 5
High school students will love the collage idea. The frame is used as a basis, the backdrop is covered with canvas.
The frame can be:
- made of wood, narrow or wide;
- antique tinted;
- baguette with patterns, painted gold.
The frame is decorated with old theater posters, programs, printed faces of actors, masks, and dried flowers. The edges can be decorated with fabric curtains.
Competition in kindergarten
Kindergartens often hold competitions, including on the theme “theater”.
Option 1
Most kids aged 3 years and older love to make things out of Lego pieces.
Lego is also useful for creating crafts on the theme of “theater” with your own hands.
You can build a stage and place puppet actors on it:
Another option for using Lego is to make a shadow theater.
Progress:
- You will need Lego elements, a Duplo Lego plate, a white A4 sheet, and a flashlight.
- Use Lego pieces to make a small stage, decorated with decorative elements, with side columns.
- Place a sheet of paper between the columns.
- Behind the sheet, make another scene on which the characters will be displayed.
- Place the flashlight so that the light falls on the figures.
The theater is ready for performance!
Option 2
Children aged 4-6 years will be happy to make theatrical appliqué from paper and scrap materials. The application is dedicated to the heroes of the fairy tale “The Three Little Pigs”.
Progress:
- Prepare materials - sheets of multi-colored cardboard, scissors, glue, as well as straw and sticks.
- Cut out 3 piglets from pink cardboard.
- Cut out templates of 3 houses from white cardboard. Each house should be decorated differently. Cover one with straw, the other with sticks, the third with bricks cut out of brown cardboard. Don't forget to make the windows and doors out of blue cardboard.
- Glue the parts onto a sheet of bright cardboard. The work is ready!
Option 3
A box from which you can make a stage screen will come in handy. Video to help solve this problem:
Option 4
You will need a picture frame, colored cardboard, scissors, thread, glue.
The characters of the chosen fairy tale are cut out of cardboard - they will be flat. You can decorate them by making hair out of threads and gluing ready-made eyes. The characters are fixed in a frame, it is decorated in the spirit of a fairy tale - trees, flowers, a hut are glued to the sides.
Option 5
For kindergarten you can make an applique from paper “Theater Masks”:
- Cut out the outline of the face from sheet A4.
- Bend it in the middle and cut it - you get a protruding nose.
- Make slits for the eyes.
- The child can paint the mask himself to his liking.
You can make a Venetian mask using cardboard. A cardboard mask can be decorated with beads, sequins, and shiny ribbons. The nose will be a cork from a plastic bottle.
Option 6
If you paint flat stones with acrylic paint, you get a stone theater.
Table theater for senior group
When a child is well versed in the plots of longer fairy tales like “The Three Little Pigs,” it is worth expanding the supply of theater sets.
The “Three Little Pigs” finger toys will surely be loved by little ones due to their bright design and ease of use. The set also comes with a script that will serve as a cheat sheet for older children.
The Masha and the Bear walker will save time on making additional decorations.
The Puss in Boots set comes with a script and the figures are reversible. This bright set will be a delight for your child or a great gift for friends.
For any paper puppet theater it is necessary to make a stage. For the finger version you will need a tall structure, which is easiest to make from an ordinary cardboard box. Make the design foldable, then it will be convenient to store.
A low stage is suitable for flat figures. It is best to store paper puppet theater kits in one place. A large plastic or cardboard box with a lid, divided into several sections, will greatly facilitate the storage and use of the figures. Such a “chest” is not convenient for everyone.
Replace it with a flat “case”. However, you won’t find a ready-made option; you’ll have to tinker with the cardboard yourself. But the result will be a convenient case that can easily fit under a bed, sofa, or in the gap between the closet and the wall. Cover it with self-adhesive paper or similar material, then it will not get too dirty.
