Portable Puppet Theater: Tree Prop

Video Transcript

"Now I'm going to show you how to make some decorations for the background of the set. The first thing we're going to do is make a tree. We're going to take some heavy construction paper and we'll first trace the, draw the outline of a tree. And then we can go ahead and decorate it with different colors, with felt or with markers. We see here I've made a basic shape of a tree and I made enough of an outline where I can just cut around it and we'll have the shape of the tree. You can also trace different shapes laying down on top of the construction paper and then cutting around it. This is a type of prop that can be put on with a Velcro strip and it could be attached to the back of the stage and that will make up the background. So once we have the shape of the tree with the, from the basic outline on the construction paper, we go ahead and start decorating it. I'm going to cut some small pieces of felt. Here I'm using green which will act as leaves. And I'm going to use the glue and just put it right on top of the construction paper. You can either use a brush or just dab your finger into the glue and put a little bit on the back of the felt. The reason why I use the construction paper is because I want it to stand upright and the construction paper gives the prop a little bit of support. Especially if I'm going to be using a piece of Velcro on the bottom, then that's really going to be the only point of where it's going to be attached to the stage. So I wanted it to be a little bit thicker and give it more support so it stands nice on the background of the stage. Once I put some leaves on, I'm going to take a different color felt. I'm going to use orange and I'm going to put pieces of fruit onto the tree. This is also a nice activity for kids or in a classroom that is doing a project. The ability for kids to make puppets and to put on a show is, really brings out a lot of creativity for kids and it's used in a lot of the schools for developmental programs that let the kids have an outlet to show their, to express their feelings and their ideas. And they do it through puppet shows. So now that our tree has been decorated, we can take the Velcro strip, not the cloth side but the piece that's going to stick onto the cloth side because we put the cloth onto the back of our picture frame border, if you remember. And now we have the other side of the Velcro sticking to it from the back. So we see it stays stationary in the back and it's nice and upright. That's because we used the nice thickness of the construction paper and with the Velcro, it gives it enough support that it stands up. And this is how we can change the set of our theater and we can add props. We can move them around and it creates a nice effect. It livens up any puppet show. So now I've shown you how to make a tree as a prop for the background of your stage."