The Waldorf Puppet Play

Stories that are presented to children on TV often contain fast changing pictures and scenes, that will confuse their mind as well as their senses, whereas the simplicity and calmness of puppet play allows the children to follow the story, step by step. It stimulates their fantasy and strengthens their life forces. Looking at the development of the young child, the unfolding of their senses, puppet play is clearly a natural continuation of storytelling and fingerplays are appropriate for the youngest as well as for school starters.

Although the following might sound like a lot of rules to follow, you will feel that it is all very natural to implement and with a bit of practice, puppet play can become a beautiful and important part of life with your own children or in a playgroup.

Simply put, puppet play is usually a rhyme or fairy tale that is accompanied by puppets, moved by the story teller, who is sitting visibly behind the scene while telling the story to the audience.

Necessary preparations: The scenery and the figures need to be arranged. The simplest scenery is often the best — simple offers a scope for the childrens‘ imagination.

When preparing the play, one can choose to do it by oneself or to involve the children, either by letting them watch or even help with the preparations. Children love to participate and when they see the scenery evolve, their imaginations are sparked and they feel motivated to create their own play later on. In any case, the process of building up the scene should be thoughtful and affectionate, the figures being placed or hidden at their starting point in the story. Now the stage might be carefully hidden under an additional piece of silk and revealed when the play starts.

The stage: The scenery should be at the eye level of the audience, which means a small bench or table serves well, but the floor can be just as practical. The children sit in front or in a semicircle around the scene. If possible, the story teller who is sitting behind the scene should be wearing clothes that won’t attract too much attention — light and plain-colored.

Colored silk or cotton cloths are often used to simulate the landscape of the story.

These at hand, green clothes can make for meadows, blue ones for the lake, pond or river, brown and gray are suitable for wood or mountains.

Natural materials, brought home from outdoor adventures, that are also used for nature tables, like stones, roots or cones can make for trees, walls, rocks etc.