Finger Puppets once more

In this post, I'm going to round up all the posts I've done on finger puppets so they are all in one place. But this is also a bit of an update.

This first one provides you with some templates for finger puppets

The next one has some Easter finger puppets, but also has some techniques and tips for making  them.

And this one has some other finger puppets, and starts to tell you about how finger puppets can be used in games for little people. 

For an update, and how to weave stories around finger puppets, read on.

The finger puppets were much loved for some years, but as the girls grew older, they were not quite as interested. (I'm sure if I got them out even now, they would play with them for a few moments, but then they'd be on to something else.) However, we do have one younger grandchild, who is two and a half, and she still likes them. Particularly when I sing a song using them, or make up a story around them .

I think this first occurred to me a few years ago, when a couple brought Gruffalo hand puppets to a second birthday party, and proceeeded to tell the story using the puppets. The two-year-olds present were spell-bound. 

One of the favourite bath-time and bedtime songs for all the girls has always been the five little ducks. You know the one. "Five little ducks went swimming one day, over the hills and far away..." Gradually, they all disappear, and, in the kinder versions, they all come back again. This became even more fun with our nice little set of 5  ducklings. Not sewn together here, but you get the idea. Mummy Duck was a duck nail brush. The children could 'disappear' the ducklings for themselves.

They still enjoyed the bathtime version too, especially if they could get away with dropping baby duck bath toys into the water fromn the bath edge, and make a splash.

Some of the puppets lent themselves to story-telling. I made up stories, and sometimes wrote them down, with pictures. Most had a moral, or a funny punchline.

The first was about a chick, a bunny and a lamb in a farmyard. (The Easter puppets came into play here.) One has a bit of an inferiority complex vis a vis the other two, but all comes right with the world as he realises everyone has some special talent.

The next story was about jungle animals - a monkey, and elephant, a lion and a giraffe. The monkey, of course, is the clever one, and they all outwit the hungry lion. I was asked to provide a kinder version, too, as some of the children hadn't been given lessons in the food chain.

Perhaps one of the favourite stories was the Arctic and Antarctic animals, who in the story are curiously allowed to mix. There's a penguin, a baby polar bear, a seal, and a whale. 

The baby polar bear has an adventure that takes him to Antarctica, but luckily, a whale appears to take him home again on his back. (There also are two versions of this, again one with no reference to the food chain.)

And then a learning story: The dog who learned to count up to 8, on account of the different numbers of feet owned by ducks, dogs and octopuses. The ducks have taken part in many stories, and even have names now. At the point of my taking the picture, the dog, Spot, didn't have any paws, but he does now, and he has a companion, Blot, with 4 paws also, who is black and white. 

I really must take more pictures of the finger puppets. Or rather, those that are left. Poor Whale got lost on the way back from holiday, when all 10 of us travelled together, and the grandchildren had great fun playing with my finger puppets and quiet books on the plane journeys each way. I kept meaning to make another whale. But things have moved on, now, of course, except for the youngest grandchild. By the age of 4,  my poseable superhero puppets in one of the quiet book pages had become more popular. (Not finger puppets.)

And by 5 or 6, they are much more interested in very active games, running, climbing trees and making up their own adventures and stories. So I'm probably not going to make any more finger puppets now, but it was great fun while it lasted!