Family Fun

Whew! Time sure doesn't fly when you're pregnant, and when you've got three kids. Unless making a baby counts as a project. Well, when you're not motivated to do something different on your own, enlist your friends or family to increase the fun! My daughter learned about shadow puppet plays in a book and wanted to do one. I'll walk you through our process. Since my kids are four and two, I had them tell me what the characters would be and I drew them out on black paper. If you wanted to be really fast/lazy, you could just print some silhouettes out and cut! Tape them to skewers or sticks and now your shadow puppets are set. For your stage, tape thin paper or a white sheet between two chairs. Put a lamp directly behind it and turn off all the other lights. You can add some cool scenery by applying black trees or buildings directly to your sheet, but we decided to forego. Once again, our kids are four and two, so rather than have them be puppets, mommy and dad put on the show for them. (We really did try to teach them what to do, but ran into complications when they wanted to both watch and hold puppets. Doesn't work like that, kids!) Our oldest told us what the plot would be, and we went for it. I think it turned out pretty well. The whole project took about an hour and a half, but we in fact had cut out the puppets while my husband was at work. Rest assured, the kiddos had a great time after the filming just standing in front of the white screen and hold their puppets behind. Good times, folks. Good times.