Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Shadow Puppets for our Alien Orchestra Shadow Puppet Play (part 2/2)


shooting star shadow puppets
back of shooting star puppets
Our story begins with the lights dimmed and the Morning Mood music playing (from Grieg's Peer Gynt suite).  All the children have gathered behind the shadow puppet screen with their puppets.  It was quite an experience for the class to learn how to share the limited space behind the screen (silently) while holding at least 2 puppets each for different parts of the story.  Check out part one of the Alien Orchestra blog posts.

Our Story Begins...
"Two bunnies are walking through the forest on a sunny day.


It is so warm they sit down to have a rest and fall asleep.  As they sleep they are dreaming.

They dream of a beautiful day in the woods where they come into a meadow.  In the meadow is a giant spaceship!  They are excited to find the spaceship and walk all around it looking for a door.  They enter the ship and suddenly it blasts off! 
The bunnies are peeking out the spaceship's portal

As the spaceship flies over the Earth, they meet up with the most beautiful birds.  The spaceship swoops and turns, flying gracefully with the birds.

As the  rocket leaves the Earth's atmosphere, the birds return to their perches in the trees below and the spaceship zooms through space.
back of the bird puppet - how the stick was attached
bird puppet with a moveable wing - two sticks attached to 1 puppet


Eventually, the bunnies land on the moon.  
When they open the door they see an alien orchestra.  The alien orchestra is playing a beautiful tune.  
back of music note puppet

alien playing violin - 2 sticks - 1 attached to alien and 1 attached to the bow so bow arm is moveable
alien playing flute - flute arm is moveable
alien playing xylophone - body of alien is moveable but attached to xylophone

The bunnies dance and move to the music.
this bunny has a moveable tail
back of bunny - see how sticks are attached to the moveable parts


Eventually, it's time to head back to the spaceship and take off for home.
red tissue was glued to back of spaceship puppet to create illusion of flames shooting out the bottom upon blast-off!

Good-bye, aliens!  Good-bye bunnies! 

It took hours to make the puppets.  I do it every year and I love it.  The parents always notice the beauty of the puppets and the children have what is possibly their only real performance opportunity to play with hand-made shadow puppets created out of their vision and ideas.  It's so worth it to offer this experience for the children!

Thank you for teaching me ukulele, violin and recorder.

Thank you card.  Notice how Moka (the dog) and Dolce (the parrot) make the front of the card!


The little boy who made the card draws himself playing the violin (because he loves it!) and Susan playing the piano (because he says I love that!).  I love these cards!



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