Shadow Puppet Fun

This past Thursday morning, Annabelle and I headed for our community center to attend a shadow puppet workshop; to be honest, I didn’t know what to expect since I’d never experienced a shadow puppet show and when Annabelle and I had attended a previous puppet workshop at our library, she wanted to leave early because she felt afraid (from her eyes, I can see how puppets can be scary).  This time though, her excitement soared through the roof–when the puppeteer/workshop leader showed the children how to create various effects for a shadow puppet show, she shouted, “I try! I try!”  First we listened to the workshop leader read us a Ukranian folktale, The Mitten, which is a magical story about a boy who loses his mitten and the animals who enjoy keeping warm inside of it (including a fox, a bear, a rabbit,  and many more!).  A few minutes later, she and I were drawing our puppet–the owl, cutting it out, and waiting in line for our special puppet holder (a popsicle stick).

When the time came for our children to line up “back stage” with their puppets, I noticed that Annabelle bravely ran to join the other children and didn’t seem to mind that I was sitting in the audience with the parents (though she did peak her head out to wave at me).  A few moments later, Annabelle and her owl marched across the shadowy screen so that the owl could hop inside the mitten.

After the show, Wendy of Mother Rising (she and Satch signed up for the workshop too), snapped a few shots of our young puppeteers.  As Annabelle and I wondered away from our theatrical morning, she danced the owl across the parking lot, around the car, and then through our house.  Once dark arrived, I surprised her with a flashlight on a blank wall in our diningroom and the shadow puppet fun resumed! To see a few pictures from our morning, visit Wendy at Mother Rising.

Photo courtesy of Wendy from Mother Rising.