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What do you do with those orphaned gloves that inevitably show up without a mate?
A fast, fun way to make a variety of characters for your plays; these puppets can be as plain or as decorated as you wish.
- put on a glove
- two fingers for ears
- fold three fingers to make the shape of the face
- glue on some eyes and a nose
- give it a voice
or
- add extra features - teeth, ear colour, tongue, lips
- ad material to make a body, wings,legs with rods attached for control ...........
The four designs shown here were created to use with Aesop's fable scripts and show four different types of characters. However, there are undoubtedly many characters that can be made with a little imagination.
Materials
- gloves
- google eyes (or material to make your own)
- pipe cleaners
- craft foam (peel and stick works well)
- felt (any scraps of material)
- glue (water based contact cement) or double sided craft tape or velcro, masking tape
(type of glue used depends on age of puppet makers)
- scissors
Sample Puppets
The hand at the right with numbered fingers can be used as a reference to determine the finger positions for each type of face
| Fox |
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- sew, glue or velcro glove fingers 2 and 3 together for the top of the snout
- pipe cleaners can be added to fingers 1 and 4 to help to keep the ears bent
- add details with tongue, teeth, eyelashes, ear colour .........
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| Tortoise |
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- decorate a paper bowl for the shell
- cut into the edge to make a place for the head (helps the shell to sit down over the hand)
- poke holes in shell on either side of the head
- tie an elastic across the opening so that it sits under finger 2 to keep the head in place
- do the same at the back to hold the wrist of glove in place
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| Crow |
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- fingers do not go all the way into the glove for this puppet
- wrap masking tape around glove fingers 1, 2 and 3 to bring to a point
- cut 2 triangular pieces (one smaller than the other) from cardboard, construction paper or craft foam for the beak
- glue or tape larger piece over taped fingers; smaller piece over thumb
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| Hare |
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- sew, glue or velcro glove fingers 3 and 4 together
- put glove on to determine best position for thumb and attach thumb behind fingers 3 and 4
- nose can be made with coiled pipe cleaner
- glue teeth to back of glove finger 4 so that a slight movement of this finger makes the puppet appear to talk
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