Christmas Puppet Show Ideas
Whether watching or participating, a puppet show is a highly engaging way to entertain and teach children. Christmas puppet shows are an excellent seasonal activity that can be done in school, a Sunday school classroom or at home to keep children occupied on cold winter days. Does this Spark an idea?
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The Nativity
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Nothing is more appropriate for the Christmas season than the story of Jesus' birth. To keep the puppet show simple for kids, use finger puppets or miniature puppets made from large Popsicle sticks. Decorate the finger puppets or stick puppets with scraps of fabric for robes, white cotton balls for beards and use a marker to make facial features.
Baby Jesus can be someone's finger, or you can paint a small item like a peanut or cut a Popsicle stick as the baby and wrap it in fabric scraps to place in a matchbox manger. Children can get involved with all aspects of the show, from writing the script (use the Bible as a reference) to making scenery.
If you don't have a puppet theater, paint the stable scene on poster board and hang it up. Put a table in front of the wall and drape a cloth over it so kids can hide under the table to do the show, and reach up with their puppets in the space between the wall and table. Scatter a few barnyard animal toys and dried grass or raffia on the tabletop to complete the scene.
Night Before Christmas
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"A Visit from Saint Nicholas," better known by its first line, " 'Twas the night before Christmas," is one of the most well-known and loved Christmas poems. Recreate the entire story in a puppet show. The show will need a narrator to read most of the lines. Unless the narrator has memorized the entire poem, it's probably best if she does not operate a puppet.
If you don't have appropriate puppets for this show, you can make paper cutouts by printing coloring pages of Santa, his reindeer, and the family whose house he visits. Paper dolls will also suffice. Decorate the paper puppets, cut them out and glue them on the bottom of a chop stick so you can operate them from above.
A large box can suffice for a diorama stage. Decorate the inside of the box as the inside of a home, and the outside of the box is the outdoors. Make a slit in the top of the box so you can fit the puppets through it and operate them through the hole in the roof.
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Reindeer Games
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Animal puppets are always a delight, and reindeer are the poster animals for Christmas. Write an original script adapted from the story of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." Set it in the North Pole stables near Santa's workshop.
In the beginning, have the other reindeers laugh, call Rudolph names, and, of course, exclude him from the reindeer games. You can add a scene with Santa asking Rudolph to guide his sleigh, then have a happy ending when the other reindeer cheer for Rudolph, apologize to him and accept him as part of the group.
Sock puppets are the perfect type of puppet for reindeer. Use brown socks, and make pipe cleaner antlers. Glue on googly eyes, and a big red pom-pom nose for Rudolph. Shoe boxes make suitable stable stalls with a little paint and decoration.
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References
- Photo Credit Kohei Hara/Photodisc/Getty Images
