Project 55: Putting on a show - Adventures of the Egyptian King

As Solomon was going to the home education workshop at Norwich Puppet Theatre, and we were looking for a project in the humanities this week, we decided to get the children to put on a puppet show.

Both Monica and Solomon have always enjoyed making and playing with puppets. One of Solomon's early home ed projects was on puppets and the theatre (Project 10: Puppets and the Theatre) and he has previously made both an Egyptian king (Project 23: Ancient Egypt) and a big fish (Project 27: Under the Sea) (both of which reappear this week!).

After starting the week looking at the different ways people tell stories on stage and screen, we got them to write and perform their own story with the puppets they have. The result: Adventures of an Egyptian King. 

We finished the week with the other classic film about putting on a show: Muppets Take Manhattan.

Next week's project: Treasure Island

Project 10: Puppets and Theatre

As Norwich Puppet Theatre had a home education workshop this week, we decided to take Solomon along, and look at puppets and the theatre more widely - although in the end there was so much on puppets there wasn't really time to consider wider ideas about theatre.

Solomon really enjoyed the Curious Characters workshop at the Puppet Theatre, and created his own puppet: 'Honk Honk'. The workshop lasted two hours, and parents could either go-and-come-back or wait in the foyer area. As it was Solomon's first event without parental supervision we decided to wait, enjoy the reasonably priced coffee and snacks, and admire the puppets on display.

Puppets to admire at the Puppet Theatre

'Honk Honk'

At home we explored the different sorts of puppets that people use, and some of the different sorts of puppets we had in our house.

Some of the puppets in our house

Solomon really enjoyed watching Punch & Judy, and the great thing these days is there are so many versions of the show available online. 

Punch & Judy Online also has a host of resources and worksheets available, and Solomon used a worksheet to create his own Punch & Judy characters. 

Punch and Judy stick puppets

We also managed to create a Mr Punch shadow puppet, and learned that shadow puppets are far more difficult (& painful) than they look!

Mr Punch shadow puppet

Next week's project: All about Lego!