I made shadow puppets for our Family Get-Together.
(You can find the post on this blog as Shadow Puppets for Everyone)
Here are pictures of the show.
Grandpa used a metal garment rack to which he attached a white sheet. He used clamps from his garage. He put the rack and the sheet behind the sofa and put his light on the table behind the rack
We turned off the lights.
Each child took a turn. Each chose three or four shadow puppets from among those I made. Then the children made up a story about the puppets they had chosen.
They were quite the stories.
At first we tried to get the children to kneel down below the sofa so that they couldn’t be seen. We grown-ups quickly learned that it was cuter and more personal to see the silhouettes of the children along with the silhouettes of the puppets.
I cut the silhouettes using my Silhouette Cutting Machine. I love Silhouette because you don’t have to buy any cartridges. You simply download the shapes you want for one dollar or less each. The download stays in my personal Silhouette library where I will always have it and I can use it over and over and over.
See how much cuter the puppet show is
when the children’s profiles and mannerisms are also in the show?
The older children told some very complicated stories. Now and then they would run back to the table where the extra puppets were standing and grab another one. Then they would add detail to their already interesting stories. We were surprised that even the youngest child told a story without much help and the other children wanted to tell stories over and over. They just kept thinking of new stories.
When the week of our Family Get-Together was over, each of the children chose several of their favorite puppets which I slid into large envelopes for them to take to their homes.
The oft repeated phrase of the evening was
” please . . . just one more story !”
To which I answered wisely
“it is up to your parents”.
Even Grandmothers can learn.
( a beautiful Santos Cage Doll)