Today we welcome summer and with the arrival of the summer season, the children finish this school stage. From now on, the children will have many hours ahead of them each day, time they need to invest in productive activities. For this it is important to get involved in children's games, spend time with them playing and have fun as a family.
Puppet theaters are perfect for family play, and this activity is very beneficial for the little ones. It helps them to show themselves in public and express themselves without being embarrassed, thus improving their self-confidence. It is also a great exercise to work concentration, stimulate your imagination and develop your creativity.
As you see, the theater has many benefits for children. So today we are going to see how we can make different puppet theaters at home. In this way we will also be working on crafts as a family and we will have more free time covered. What better way than to work on a manual project all together, to spend the long summer afternoons.
Below you will see different types of puppet theater, as you can see, you have many ways of doing it, from the smallest and easiest, to the largest and most elaborate. You can choose the level of difficulty yourself, depending on the age of your children and the time you want to dedicate to this project. The important is involve children to the maximum, so they will have fun from the first moment.
Children's puppet theater
Castle-shaped puppet theater
The base that is needed to build this castle-shaped theater is a fairly large cardboard box. Since we want to give it a certain castle look, we will have to add cardboard to the base to make the turrets. To decorate it, you can use tissue paper of different colors or gift paper that you have at home. If you want, it can also be painted with the help of children.
The fabric that will act as a curtain can be a shirt or garment that you have at home and no longer serve. Recycled materials are perfect for this type of crafts. The size will depend on how you want to use the theater, if it is smaller, you will also have to make small puppets with old socks, for example. If the box is large enough, the children will be the protagonists.
Finger puppet theater
Here's a sample of a finger puppet theater, an ideal project that you can also transport. A great idea if you are going to travel on vacation, you can take the theater with you to play anywhere. As you can see, the cardboard box has been lined with a fairly thick fabric, some velcro strips have been added at the ends to be able to leave the theater closed.
Don't worry if you are not an expert seamstress, you can use special glue for fabrics and the result will be very similar.
Miniature Puppet Theater
Here we see another option, in this case it is a miniature puppet theater. All you need is a small cardboard box, a shoe box can do. Make a hole all over the front, paint and decorate the theater with the chosen motifs, in this case the bottom of the sea. Puppets are simple skewer sticks, draw the silhouette of the chosen characters, in this case little mermaids.
If you put a photo of each member of the family on each character's head, you yourself will be the protagonists of the adventures in the theater. A very fun and original idea, in addition takes up very little space, something ideal if at home you do not have too much free space.
Cardboard puppet theater
Finally, we have this much less elaborate option. If you don't have a lot of time to dedicate to crafts, this idea may be for you. You only need a fairly large cardboard box, cut out the window where the function will be seen. Decorating the cardboard can be a child's job, they can paint it with finger paint, felt-tip pens or stick on stickers. Everything they want.
Happy summer