Puppet Program 2014

A few weeks ago, one of my amazing coworkers and I did a puppet show program for preschool aged children.  We’re fortunate enough at our library to have both a theater and staff who can record and edit video.  The recorded version of our puppet show has been up on our youtube channel for about a week or so now, and I’ve been pondering about whether or not to post it here.  I don’t expect anyone who actually reads this blog to have the time — or even the inclination — to watch this 19 minute puppet show program; however, as much as this blog is for sharing ideas and networking, it’s also sort of an online portfolio for myself, and I’m very proud of this performance, so I’m going to go ahead and post it here.

If you do happen to watch this video, take note of my coworker’s awesome puppet voices!  She is fantastic!  Other fantastic coworkers who you don’t see here but were important nonetheless are the light and sound folk as well as the video folk!  Yay team!

Puppet Show: It’s Spring!

This will be my last puppet show for awhile.  I don’t have one planned for May, and we don’t do puppet shows in the summer (the room with the puppet theater is too small for our summer crowds).  I was really suffering from some puppet show writer’s block when I came up with this one.  It’s not my favorite out of all the puppet shows, but the kids seem to love anything that involves puppets, so it still works out well in the end.

In this puppet show, two mice discuss how they know it’s spring and are interrupted by a bear who has woken up from hibernation.

Its Spring

Puppet Show: It’s An Elephant

I’ve been very bad about offering puppet shows over the past few months.  I write the shows and plan which theme/week to use them, but something always comes up that prohibits me from actually doing the puppet show at storytime.  The last time this happened, it was due to my storytime crowd showing up 10 minutes late (we ended up having a big crowd that day, they were just all late).  By the time I finished reading the books, it was already past 11:00, which is when storytime ends.

Luckily, I was able to fit in a puppet show this past week.  Our theme was elephants, and I drafted up a puppet show that’s both educational and a little humorous.  The kids particularly liked the end!

Its An Elephant

Two Puppet Shows!

I’ve been lax on my puppet show posting!  So I present two puppet shows that I’ve done recently:  The first one, The Autumn Guessing Game, involves a mouse and bear entertaining themselves with a fall-themed guessing game.  The second, The Princess and the Sleepy Dragon, focuses on a princess who teaches a sleepy dragon how to count.

The Autumn Guessing Game

The Princess and the Sleepy Dragon

Puppet Show: The Confused Frog Prince

Last week we did a storytime about frogs, and I decided that it was high time for another puppet show.  We actually do have a frog puppet, but the thing is so huge and heavy that we don’t like using it for puppet shows.  Which is how I came up with the idea of having a puppet show about a crocodile with an identity crisis.  Enjoy!

The Confused Frog Prince

Puppet Show: Little Red is One Smart Cookie

This week in storytime, our theme is spots and stripes, and I included a puppet show that kind of, sort of, in a way ties in with the theme.  I almost didn’t do a puppet show at all this month since the homeschool kids are going to come in next week to perform fractured fairy tales.  But then I realized that homeschool kids are not the same as puppets and that my storytime kids would be severely disappointed if we didn’t have a puppet show this month.  So I very hastily wrote this puppet show last week (which is why I had the unfortunate task of writing a puppet show that ((kind of, sort of, in a way)) ties in with the spots and stripes theme.)

Little Red is One Smart Cookie.

Puppet Show: If You’re Happy and You Know It

I completely forgot to do a puppet show for storytime in December!  It turned out okay, though, because we had very poor attendance during the last two weeks, due to holiday travelling.  My regulars were all back this week though, and they were just in time for a new puppet show!  Our theme was Emotions, so this puppet show is about a bear who starts off very sad but gets cheered up by a humorous mouse!

The jokes found in this puppet show were taken from the book, Animal Quack-Ups by Michael Dahl.

If You’re Happy and You Know It.

Puppet Show: Rubber Ducky

Last week’s storytime theme was Bubbles and Baths.  I probably won’t get around to posting the whole storytime plan (we read some books, we popped bubbles, we did a flannelboard…), but I will post the puppet show that I wrote up for it!  I took a risk with this one and added some props.  With the exception of the skunk (which we had the puppet for), I just used clip art glued to popsicle sticks for the props.

Since the theme was bath and bubbles, this puppet show is about the search for a missing rubber ducky (because you can’t take a bath without a rubber ducky, doncha know).

The Rubber Ducky Puppet Show.

Puppet Show: Do Pigs Say Moo?

I do a puppet show in storytime about once a month.  While my library has a few books that have puppet shows in them, I feel like many of these are much too complicated for my limited experience with puppets.  So I end up writing my own puppet shows.  They’re simple in the sense that they don’t require props or especially talented puppeteers; however, they do focus a lot on audience participation, which usually results in very happy children (they love talking to the puppets!).

This week our storytime theme is all about Pigs, and it’s been about a month since my last puppet show, so I whipped up a puppet show about pigs.  And then it hit me that I can’t be the only librarian in the world who finds herself scratching her head and thinking up puppet shows every now and then, so I’ve decided to post my puppet shows in here for others to use/adapt.

Do Pigs Say Moo?