PuppeTales pt. 2

Need some tips on operating a puppet?
* Practice before your debut! Bring the puppet home and sit in front of a mirror with a book in your hand. Practice holding the book and showing it to the puppet. Practice turning pages and using the puppet to keep them steady. Practicing in advance will give you confidence in front of your audience!

* To keep the character looking real, make sure your mascot looks down at the book he’s reading. Actually move the characters head to follow along the sentences and down the page. When you turn the page, Have the character watch the page move. This does actually help to give it life and make it more “real”!

If using a puppet to read the books sounds complicated (it’s NOT! Really!), you can still incorporate a mascot into your programs! Once you pick a puppet, you can hold a naming raffle and offer the children a chance to enter names for the character! If you hold regular drawings for reading prizes, you can have the mascot pick the names and read them out (he or she can also congratulate the winners!). Your mascot can offer book suggestions that change weekly! Children can make reading suggestions to your mascot! The possibilities are limited only by a lack of imagination!

Have fun and your audience will as well!

Read the entire article and more by downloading it!

PuppeTales article (Feb. 2008) Part 1

Here's Part ONE of my PuppeTales article for Mr. Anderson's Company! Download the entire newsletter here!

Creating a Storytime Mascot!

In many libraries, and classrooms, it is traditional to sit the children down on the floor and read them a story. This is a wonderful time to introduce whimsy and play to children and one of the ways to do that is to create and use a storytime mascot!

There are many ways to use a puppet as your mascot! You can pick a single puppet to read stories to the children for storytime, or you can rotate a “team” of mascots to read stories that “fit” them (I.e. a bug for bug books, a dog for stories about dogs, etc.). Generally, I use only animals for storytelling. It reminds me of Aesop’s Fables, in that the individual hearing the story can see bits of themselves portrayed by the animals and identifies with them.

How can you use these puppets to read stories? Simple! Pick a puppet with a moving mouth and a full body! You can sit the puppet in your lap and use one hand to hold/operate the puppet and the other to hold the book. Now, here’s fun tip on using full bodied puppets: pick on that had good “arms” on it and those puppet arms can help you balance the book on your lap and act as page holders! For this “season” of storytime, many people are trying to use bugs to keep with the theme “Catch the Reading Bug”. Ithink this is a wonderful idea and have spotted a great little character that fits the mascot needs! Gund has a great full body character line called “Kooky Kreatures” that features an ant (I’ll admit to having one myself...full disclosure!)! Is the bug thing too much for you? Well, my FIRST storytime love was a sitting dog created by Folkmanis. He was sitting up to “beg” and had the sweetest face! His hands were perfect for holding a book! I don’t know if they still make this little guy but, if not, I’m sure there are alternatives! (Turns out, they DO! Check him out here

Just got back!

I was at Walt Disney World for a special event and am FINALLY getting caught up! I saw the Finding Nemo: The Musical at Animal Kingdom and LOVED it! Hopefully, I can get Sean to post some pics of it (his camera liked the low lights better than mine!).

I'll also be posting this month's PuppeTales article for your enjoyment!