In this project, you will go one step beyond the Simple Stick Puppets by adding movement. Make a fish wiggle as it swims, an octopus that dances about, a monkey climb a tree, and have puppet people move their arms! It just takes a hole punch and paper fasteners to add moving joints to these puppets. The play in this project, The Defeat of Great Glooskap, is based on an Algonquin Native American folktale.
This is the second in a series of puppet projects that includes plays based on folktales from cultures around the world and from previous eras.
Related craft: For more stick puppets, see Simple Stick Puppets and Clip Art or Photo Puppets.
Choose the puppets that you want to make. You can choose to make animated stick puppets for the play, The Defeat of Great Glooskap, a monkey for a play of your own, or an animated fish or octopus puppet to go with the ocean-themed Stick Puppets. You can also choose to make a shadow puppet version of the animated fish puppet—see Shadow Stick Puppet Patterns for more shadow puppet patterns.
For the most creativity, use the blank puppet patterns. You can make the face, hair and clothes look anyway you like. Use the hair cutouts or create your own hair style to glue to the puppet's head. For child-size puppets, print the blank man and woman patterns at 60% to 80%.
Download the pattern and print it on white cardstock. If you don't have cardstock, print the pattern on white paper and glue it to cardboard; cereal box cardboard is fine.
Patterns are Adobe PDF files. The Adobe Reader is available for free.
All of Aunt Annie's project patterns are designed to be printed on standard letter-size paper (8.5"x11" or A4). When printing from Adobe Reader, you may need to select Auto-Rotate and Center or Choose paper source by PDF page size to ensure the best fit.
If you chose to print a black and white pattern, color the puppets any way you like with crayons, markers or colored pencils.
You might also decorate the puppets with bits of colored paper or yarn for the hair, but you may want to wait to decorate each puppet until after you have cut it out.
Cut out each puppet piece, taking care to cut neatly and accurately. Each puppet has two or three pieces.
If you printed on paper, make a stronger puppet by gluing the cutout to cardboard. First do a rough cut, and then glue the puppet to a piece of cardboard. After the glue dries, finish cutting the puppet pieces.
Use paper fasteners to join the puppet pieces. With the tip of the scissors or a small hole punch, make holes where the X or O is marked on each piece. Put the parts together—aligning the holes you just made. Push the paper fastener from front to back and spread the fastener ends on the back side.
For the fish, be sure that the body is in front of both the head and tail. For the people and monkey, be sure that the arms are behind the bodies. You may want to tape the tips of the fasteners to keep them from moving.
For the octopus, align the holes on the two parts and push the fasten from front to back. Attach the sticks to the two outer most legs—one on each part. See Step 5 for more details. If you have trouble moving the octopus, tighten the fasten so it doesn't move so easily and tape the tips of the fastener down.
Put the puppets face side-down on the table. Tape skewers to the back of each puppet, tip up. For the fish, tape one near the nose and the other near the tail. For the people and monkey, tape one skewer to a leg and tape a skewer just above the elbow of each moveable arm.
The sticks can also be attached with a drop of white craft glue, but it will need to dry for a few hours or overnight.
Bamboo skewers are available in most grocery stores. Pick some that are 10 or more inches (25 cm) long. Any other flat or narrow stick will also work.
To put on a show, you will also need a stage. Turn a card table on its side, or put two chairs together and hang a towel or sheet from a stick across the tops.
You could also use a large box as a stage. Turn the box open side-down, and cut away the center of one side.
Perform the play, The Defeat of Great Glooskap, or make up a story of you own.
Think of what your puppets will do. Where does your play take place? Is your play funny or dramatic? Rehearse your play a few times and then perform it for family and friends.
Shadow puppets: Animated stick puppets can also be used as shadow puppets. Hang a piece of tissue paper or a thin sheet as a drape. Put a bright light behind the drape with the puppets between the light and drape. The audience will see shadows moving across the stage. Be sure the light doesn't shine on the puppeteers—we don't want to see their shadows.
That's it! Your puppets are done!