The days were close to the mid term exams of the children. Most children were busy studying, completing their books and at home there was seriousness and we could feel the children being under exam pressure. This was true for all age groups from std 1 to std 7 children who are very much part of our community library. In the library our sessions were to continue and we planned to do something different and exciting for the children.
After going through the resource books at Bookworm trying to find something interesting, my eyes fell on the puppet play book. I went through the book and felt this should be fun. I went to Sujata, our Director and asked her what she feels and she said children will like it. Since I have never done a puppet theatre before I was advised to plan my session well. I had the freedom of using the masks, the finger puppets if I needed but I thought making children do the puppets and create their own puppet theatre box will be more fun.
I wanted the session to be engaging for all and that everyone should get a chance to be part of the play. So I searched for a book that has different characters. I found ‘How Can You Hide An Elephant‘ by Patricia Miles Martin and illustrated by George.M.Ulrich. A lovely story about how the animals together help a big elephant to hide so that the man in the jeep does not take him to the zoo. The story was much enjoyed by both the junior and senior groups as they had to think and suggest about how to hide an elephant. Their responses to this were interesting and then finally seeing what the animals did was surprising for them. After the Read Aloud, the children recalled the story through the story web activity and they coloured the animals from the story. Each one had a printed character and they coloured it the way they wanted it. We used the ice cream sticks to stick it and made stick puppets of all the characters. The children as usual wanted to take them home and we told them that we are going to do a small play using the puppets. They were happy and assured that they will come for the next session. Some of them said that they might be late but we should wait for them. I was happy to hear this and headed back.
For the next session, we recalled the story where mostly the children told the story in their own words. We then worked on creating a jungle and making the puppet theatre box. The junior did different kinds of trees using their creativity and the seniors worked on cutting the box and sticking all the things that the juniors had made. Both the groups worked very well suggesting colours and thing to add to the box. On day 2 the theatre box was ready and the children were not ready to go home. They wanted to do more. We told them to pick their characters and think of what sounds they make, how will they run and how will they talk. Some of the junior children who had rabbits were seen hopping on the floor and practicing their voices. It was amazing to see them.
On day 3 the exams were in full swing, we waited for children to come and to add to it there was no electricity in the village. The time went by and we waited for the children to come. The room was feeling darker than usual as we were waiting restlessly for them. We did not go out to call the children as on our previous visits their parents had told us that the children will be busy with the exams.
Finally after an hour the children arrived and they were more restless than us to do the play. We held the puppet theatre box in the hand and used mobile torchlight to make this happen. We were not required to narrate the story and the children took it over. They said the dialogues and moved the puppets to get the effect of running. By the end of the whole session we had about 14 children all ducked under the puppet theatre box. They had a great time and we were sweating like anything. We all left the library with a lot of laughter and they took their stick puppets home.
The best surprise for us was a child coming to the library for the next session with a theatre box made by him! So yes, it worked out as a good engaging activity and we had a good time together in our library.