The Island Day Nursery, Newport, Isle of Wight

Island Day Nursery home
Contact us and nursery location
Download contracts, policies and various forms
Nursery news and events
Nursery student placements, training and staff qualifications
Nursery opening hours
Kindergarten fees
Ratios, group sizes and the key person system
Settling your child in the day-nursery
Nursery facilities and equipment
Children's nutrition
Health and safety Fun club Useful links

Make a puppet theatre

You will need:
  • 1 large rectangular cardboard box
  • newspaper
  • wallpaper paste
  • material for curtains
  • strip of fringe for top
  • Ribbon or cord
  • paints
  • varnish (optional)
  • Copydex or similar glue

This is what you do:

  • Cut off any lid flaps that are on the box then cut out a rectangular hole in the base as shown in the picture above.
  • Reinforce the box with pasted strips of newspaper and leave to dry out thoroughly. Be careful not to paste so many strips of paper at one time that the extra weight pulls the cardboard out of shape. If you want the theatre to be really strong, then reinforce it twice, drying out thoroughly in between each pasting.
  • Paint the theatre however you wish. You can leave it plain or decorate the surface any way you like.
  • When the paint is completely dry you can apply a coat of varnish. Leave to dry out.
  • Cut a length of fringe if used and paste inside the top of the opening.
  • Make some simple curtains with material remnants and stick to inside of theatre.
  • With some ribbon make two tie backs for your curtains.

Now you are ready to have fun with your puppet theatre. You'll need to stand it on the edge of a table or stool so that the puppeteer has room to stand or sit behind it and operate the puppets. This design is suitable for hand or finger puppets. If you wanted to make one for string puppets, then it would need to be larger and have enough of a hole in the roof to enable you to operate the string puppets.

< back to Activities

 

Tel: 01983 533334
email :