Found Object Puppetry
Movement and Music Activity 

Grades 2-6 (with guidance, younger children can do this too!)

Puppetry is an age-old art that exists in many many cultures around the world. But ANY object can become a puppet or part of a puppet!

In groups of 3-4, look around you and pick out three everyday objects from your schoolroom or your house. Place the objects on a table, and really look at them. Notice their sizes, shapes, their weight, and their texture. Each person uses both hands, and holds the objects in different spatial relationships to each other. See if they give you any ideas, or make you feel any emotions.

Now this is the really fun part! Put on your imaginations, and ask yourselves and each other if you see anything that makes or almost makes the shape of a person, an animal, or a living being? See if you can come up with a character using all three of these objects. What are the parts of the body you can represent with your objects? How would this character move? How would this character sleep, eat, dance? What feelings would this character have, and how would these feelings be expressed without words?

Here are some important secrets of puppetry from Lunatique Fantastique's director, Liebe Wetzel:

1. The head is the key! The head or seeing part of your puppet must look and see. Try this: Take a jacket or a piece of cloth and make part of it into a head. Practice making the head look and see, and then return to normal. Have your puppet head look at the table, the clock on the wall, the window.
2. Breath is life! Your puppet will really come alive if you make it breathe. First, take a moment to notice your own breath. What parts of your body move when you breathe? Make sure your puppet breathes, and it will really come to life!
3. Look and see! Now get a partner and have one of you work the head, and another the body. Have the puppet look, see, and then wave. Now add at third person to work the feet! Have your puppet move. Have it walk, skip, and jump. Have him look and see. Make sure he breathes.

Finally, get together with another group and have your characters meet each other. Use your imagination skills to see only the character, and not the people moving the objects. Make up a short story of your characters meeting. Have fun showing the other groups! And remember to be a great audience member!