Puppets and story stones
My friend Mary likes to use a puppet when she tells stories. She uses the same one every time and the puppet, a lamb, serves as Mary's assistant. You might hear her saying, as she looks at her puppet, "So what do you think happened next, Lambkins?"
I have a container of 50 puppets and when I work with large groups of children, I will let the children each hold a puppet and work with it as the story develops. On other occasions I have used puppets as my characters in the latest story.
Puppets can be made at home as a special weekend activity for you and your child. The easiest puppet I ever made is a bear puppet. I found a bear picture and pasted it on a tall Popsicle stick. I actually discovered my main character for one story by cutting out a fairy from one of my greeting cards. The other characters I cut from catalogues and colouring books. Those that needed colouring received hot colours from my favourite smelly felt pens. Since I use my puppets when I give workshops I wanted them to last -- so I laminated them before attaching them with glue to the long Popsicle sticks.
I have also given children something special to hold throughout a story. On one occasion I painted rocks to look like lady bugs and the children received this instruction, "You'll need to tip toe over to the story circle today and when you get there I'll give you a Story Stone to hold while we have our story." You can plan an afternoon of rock picking followed by a rock painting session for you and your children!
Costumes
Costumes add much flair to story telling. When I was younger I wore a cape and special hat. Putting them on was an announcement that story time would now follow. But what about costumes for the listeners? Little girls love to select a sparkling cape to admit them to storyland and the boys seem to be divided as to whether they should wear pirate hats, miner's helmets or come to the story session with a dark cloak. I keep a box of costumes handy. Why just use costumes at Halloween?
