My kids are finger puppet fans! But this was not always the case; many children are interested in them even in infancy and listen with pleasure. mother's tales and nursery rhymes, but my children didn’t like it. They became interested in finger puppets and role-playing fairy tales only after 2 years (both son and daughter) and after some time they themselves began to tell and compose mini fairy tales with different characters.

A year ago I already wrote an article about. In this article I want to show and prove to you that you can make finger puppets with your own hands. This is a very exciting activity that does not take much time. The dolls turn out to be very compact, they are convenient to take with you, they will not take up much space in your bag and will even fit in your baby’s pocket.

Have you noticed how popular it has become in Lately How's the material?! Yes!? And this is no coincidence - it is really ideal for creativity for a number of reasons, I’ll try to prove:

Felt holds its shape well
Edges do not require processing
It can be stitched, glued, or stapled. Felt is ready for any impact
It is bright and colorful. Have a wide color scheme colors and shades
Pleasant to the touch
Available in different thicknesses from 1 to 5 mm
Has different composition (wool, wool blend, acrylic, polyester, viscose)

So, I hope I’ve convinced you to use felt for finger puppets, then get your thread and needle ready and start creating. Here are some interesting ideas for dolls, maybe you will like some:

Finger puppets from felt “Farm” - a horse, a cow, a pig, and a farmer.

You can also make finger puppets, which will also be very beautiful and functional, but, unfortunately, not durable.

Today we will show you how to make cool paper finger toys for little ones. With the help of these animals, your children will be able to play a fun farm, or even show a small puppet theater. Making them is very simple, since we have already prepared animal templates for you. All you have to do is print them and assemble them. You can make a pig, a cat, a horse, a mouse and a rabbit for your children.

Everything, that you will need:

thick paper
scissors
toy templates (download)

Let's do

First, print out the templates for future toys and carefully cut them out. Look carefully, there are also parts for rings that will be glued to the heads of animals, and then put on the child’s finger so that he can control the character’s head. These rings also need to be cut out.

Now roll the animals' bodies to form a main ring where the child will insert his finger.

Now it’s time for the little rings that need to be glued into the animals’ heads.

That's all, the toys are ready! You can start playing with the children.

Learn how to create a puppet theater with your own hands. At the same time, characters can not only be sewn and molded, but also made from plastic spoons and wooden sticks.

DIY finger puppet theater

Do you want to develop fine motor skills baby, speech, thinking and simply have the opportunity to lift the whole family’s spirits, then turn the room into a temple of art. To do this, you need to know how to make a finger puppet theater with your own hands.

For this you will need:

felt;
threads;
scissors.

As you can see, the characters in the fairy tale “Turnip” are cut out very simply. Each hero consists of two identical parts. But on one side you need to embroider facial features with threads. You can make them by cutting them out of dark felt and then gluing or sewing them on.

Fold 2 character blanks with the wrong sides together, sew along the edge using a machine or with a thread and a needle on your hands.

To make a beard for your grandfather, wrap several rows of thread around your fingers and cut them on one side. Fold these identical threads in half and sew the beard in place.

And here’s what the heroes of the fairy tale “The Ryaba Hen” might be like.

Cut out your grandfather's beard and bangs and grandmother's hair from gray felt. It will also help you create a mouse with a long tail. These are the dolls for puppet theater can be sewn. If a baby will wear them, cut them so that they are the size of his fingers. If the performance will be performed for children by adults, then the fabric dolls should be slightly larger.

Check out one more interesting idea. This could be a home puppet theater for staging the fairy tale “Turnip”. IN kindergarten It's better to have larger characters so that the whole group can see them from afar. But you can do something like this by taking:

modeling paste (preferably Jovi, which does not need to be burned, it hardens in air);
yellow and green paste Jovi Patcolor;
acrylic paints;
tassels;
markers;
stacks.

Let's sculpt the grandfather first. Take a piece of pasta measuring 2x3 cm, roll it into a sausage, and form a cylinder. You should end up with something like a nesting doll with a body and head, and at the bottom there will be a notch for your finger.
Separately sculpt the arms and attach them to the body. But outline the facial features, beard, and mustache using a stack.
Using the same principle, sculpt the grandmother, granddaughter and animals. Once these characters are dry, paint them. acrylic paints.
For the turnip, roll a ball of yellow paste, pull it out a little from the top, insert green plastic tops here, and secure.

When sculpting with paste, you will find that it dries quickly in the air, so periodically wet your fingers with water.

This is how you will get a finger puppet theater; with your own hands, a child will be able to act out the fairy tale “Turnip” or come up with his own plot with some of these characters.

DIY table theater

If you want to have a tabletop theater with paper dolls, then enlarge the following image. Print it on a color printer on thick paper. If this is not possible, attach a sheet of thin paper to the screen and transfer the outlines onto it. Then place it on cardboard, draw outlines, and let the child decorate the characters with colored pencils or paints. All that remains is to cut out the images, glue each one on the side and glue the top of the head to the head.

And here are some more templates that can be used to easily make theater dolls. With your own hands or by giving the blanks to your child, cut them out along the contours and glue them in pairs.

If a small rectangular sheet of colored paper is glued on the side, you get a small tube. It should be such that it fits well on your finger. Glue the ears, nose, eyes, front paws to the blank, and you will get a finger puppet theater hero.

These characters can be made from the most unexpected materials. See how to turn plastic spoons into stage plays.

To make these toys for the puppet theater, take:

plastic spoons;
colored paper;
scissors;
ready-made plastic eyes;
glue gun;
textile;
narrow tape, scissors.

Next follow these instructions:

Using a glue gun, glue the finished eyes to the convex side of the spoon.
Turn a piece of fabric tied with a ribbon into a dress. For male character All you need to do is glue a bow tie around your neck.
Cut strips of colored fringe paper on one side and glue this hair. They will also be replaced by pieces of colored cotton wool.

That's it, the children's puppet theater at home is ready. Take a large cardboard box, cover it with colored paper, and turn it over. Make slits in the bottom with a knife, insert spoons here and move the dolls along these holes, like along a path.

Other characters are controlled in the same way, to create which you will need:

ice cream sticks;
children's magazines;
glue;
scissors.

Let the child cut out pictures of people and animals from a magazine or an old book and paste them on sticks.

If you want to make another tabletop theater, then milk bottle caps will come into play. Plastic cups from under yogurt.

Glue paper fairy tale characters to the back of these items, and you can play out old stories with them or invent new ones. The background is created from a large sheet of cardboard, which is painted to match the theme.

How to make a screen for a puppet theater?

This is an essential attribute of puppet theater. Check out the simplest options:

Cover the hole under the table with a cloth, tying its two corners to the top of one and the other leg. The child sits on the floor behind him and leads the characters at the level of the table top - just above it.
Take an old curtain or sheet. Gather any of these fabrics onto a rope, tie the ends of the thread on one and the other side of the doorway. Make a rectangular cutout in the center of the top of any of these pieces. It should be at such a height that it is not visible to a child or adult sitting behind the curtain who are playing the role of puppeteers.
For finger theater a table screen is being made. The easiest way is to make it from cardboard. Take the box. It needs to be disassembled, covered with wallpaper or colored paper, and 2 sides bent so that a sufficiently sized canvas remains in the center. There is a cutout in it through which the puppeteer shows finger toys.

Here's how to make a plywood screen. For it you will need:

plywood;
jigsaw;
fabric or piece of wallpaper;
glue;
small door hinges.

Manufacturing instructions:

Based on the presented dimensions, cut out 3 blanks from plywood: a central one and 2 side panels. Cover them with fabric.
When the canvas is dry, attach the loops to designated areas so that you can close the screen for the puppet theater and fold it.

See how to make a screen out of cardboard so you can show performances with mitten, glove, and cane puppets. It should be such that the puppeteer can fit there freely, standing in full height. If the performance is performed by children different ages, then the tall ones will kneel, placing a pillow under them.

In order to make a screen, you will need:

PVA glue;
rope or lace;
carton boxes;
wallpaper;
stationery knife;
awl;
roulette;
wide brush;
long ruler;
rag.

You can make a screen for a puppet theater with your own hands as follows:

The drawing is given for teenagers or adults whose height is 1 m 65 cm. If you are making a screen for children, reduce this figure.
To make it durable, make it three-layer. For this one large leaf Glue the second cardboard, then on the other side - the third. Apply PVA glue with a wide brush. This way you will make the front part - the apron.
The side elements are also made in three layers, but the folds, which you then glue to the apron, should consist of one layer.
Connect the parts by gluing them. When the glue has dried, sew in these places with a lace, having previously made holes in the fastening points. Attach the top arch in the same way.

All that remains is to cover the screen with wallpaper of a dim color so that it does not distract from the theatrical performance.

We make do-it-yourself glove dolls

These can be seen in a real puppet theater. Dolls put gloves on their hands. By bending your fingers, you can make the fabric character tilt its head and move its arms.

Children's puppet theater will have many characters if you use the proposed template.

But it is not necessary to create all the heroes at once. Let's start with two - bunnies and piglets. Having understood how to make such doll gloves, you will be able to sew others, thereby gradually replenishing your theater.

If you then make human dolls, you can make the hairstyle from fabric or thread.

The thickness of the character's neck should be such that the puppeteer can insert the middle and index fingers to control the hero of the play.

Before sewing puppets for the theater, place a puppeteer's glove on the re-cut pattern to decide whether the base is suitable. If not, then increase or decrease it. You can do without a glove by placing the puppeteer’s hand on the base pattern. Please note that the character will not be static, so you need to add a little on all sides for a loose fit so that the fabric of the action hero does not stretch while controlling him.

So, here's what you need to sew a glove doll:

faux fur and/or plain fabric;
tracing paper or transparent paper or cellophane;
pen;
scissors;
threads;
buttons for eyes.

Enlarge this pattern. Attach a transparent material (cellophane, paper or tracing paper) to it and redraw it. Cut along the outline.

Place the pattern on the fabric folded in half, cut with a 7 mm seam allowance. For a bunny it is better to take gray fabric or white fur, for a pig - pink.

If you want to draw facial features, tails, hands, hooves, then do it now, before sewing both halves of each character. Take special fabric paints that do not fade when washed. If there are none, then use watercolor, gouache, but first apply a PVA solution to the fabric, after it dries, paint this place, but use a minimum of water. When the paint is dry, add another layer of PVA on top to secure it.

But it is best to embroider the nose and mouth by stretching these areas onto a hoop or sewing blanks of appropriate colors and eye buttons.

Cut out a shirtfront from white fur for the bunny glove doll, sew its triangular part to the front half, and the semicircular part, in the form of a collar, to the back half. To this same back side the tail is attached, and white paws with or without pink claws are attached to both parts.

When small parts are sewn on, you can sew both halves of the doll on the inside out using a machine or on the face using your hands. In the latter case, use an over-the-edge seam or take a tape of a matching color and edge the side seam with it.

Other glove dolls, for example, a pig, are also created using this technique.

When the sides are stitched on all sides, hem the bottom. The characters' ears can be stuffed with cotton wool or padding polyester. Fill the pig’s nose with any of these materials, only after that sew this “patch” to the head. Applique it on his cheeks, giving them a blooming look. It remains to sew a few yellow threads between the ears, and another glove doll is ready.

Now you know how to sew characters for a puppet theater, if you want to see this too, then watch the following stories.

Finger puppet theater is a fun educational activity for kids. It perfectly expands the imagination and strengthens fine motor skills. The heroes of such a theater, that is, toys, can be homemade, sewn or knitted, cut out of paper or wood. Making a finger theater with your own hands is quite simple. Let's consider all the methods.

Let's see how to make toys famous fairy tale"Turnip".

We will need:

modeling paste. Very good is JOVI, which becomes hard in the open air. It dries quickly and does not need to be burned. The paste can be coated with paint or varnish;
green and yellow JOVI Patcolor pastes;
tassels;
acrylic paints;
stacks (special sticks with tips);
markers.

You need to take a paste with the volume of a third of a matchbox. Let's start with grandfather. We sculpt a cylinder, form the head, outline the torso. In general, the end result should be a matryoshka-shaped figure. At the base of the nesting doll you need to make a hole for your finger. Handles molded from the same paste need to be attached to the finished body.

Remember to constantly wet your fingers with water, as the paste dries quickly in the air. Small parts– mustache, beard, nose, eyes – it’s better not to sculpt, but to cut out in a stack.

All the characters in the fairy tale are made in the same way, as are the rest of the toys - from the grandmother to the mouse. Don't forget to make a hole in the base of the toy for your finger!

We make a turnip as follows: we make a sphere from paste yellow color, and using a stack we cut out the tops from a sheet of green paste. We attach the “vegetation” to the root crop and fix it tightly.

When the heroes of “Turnip” have dried, we paint the toys with acrylic paints using brushes. You can entrust this work to the child himself. The plasticine puppet theater is ready!

Paper finger theater

Making a finger theater with your own hands from paper is even easier. We will need:

multi-colored and plain paper;
glue;
paints;
tassels;
scissors.

Making toys that fit on your finger out of paper is as easy as shelling pears. You can find pattern templates on the Internet, print them on a color printer, cut them out and glue them together. You can simply cut out the paper “finger pad” of the desired character, color it yourself and also glue it together.

If you or your child are good at origami, then the scope for imagination is simply unlimited. The only negative is that such dolls are very fragile and short-lived. On the other hand, every day you can stage a new play with new characters. That is, it is a theater where the largest productions and the introduction of new characters are possible with relative ease of implementation.

Sewn finger theater

Toys made from thick fabric are as durable as those made from paste. Such finger puppets can be made of wool, felt, leatherette, or felt. In addition to the fabric itself, we will, of course, need threads, a needle and elements for embroidering the toy’s face: beads, sequins, etc.

How to sew dolls? First of all, decide whether you can make patterns for a cat, fox, or dog yourself, or is it better to use ready-made ones? There are a great many of them on the Internet. Further - simple work. We transfer the pattern onto the fabric, cut out two parts of the doll, and sew them together with a regular seam over the edge.

However, if you know how to work on a sewing machine with small shapes, then this is even better - the edges of the doll will turn out more neat. When the silhouette is ready, do not forget that the base cannot be sewn together; with the help of it, the toys will be put on the finger - we embroider with a floss stitch or make eyes and a nose using beads. The toys are ready. All that remains is to put them on your fingers and put on a show.

Another option: link. But to do this you need to know how to knit, and quite well.

DIY Kolobok Theater

Kolobok is one of the most favorite fairy tales for children. So why not organize the Kolobok finger theater with your child? Moreover, this is not difficult to do. All you need to make a tabletop bun theater with your own hands is to download the templates, print them and assemble the figures. After that it will be possible to put on a real show.

The Kolobok table theater is presented in several versions so that you can choose the one you like best. You can download any of them. Some options also include decorations for the Kolobok puppet theater, which will add realism to the performance.

First of all, you should remember the fairy tale. Puppet theater Kolobok script may be similar:

So, let's begin our short review. The first version of the Kolobok paper theater includes not only the characters of the fairy tale, but also the scenery - a clearing, the background, trees. To place the heroes, you need to glue special strips to them, which are also included in the kit. You will get a real puppet theater on the Kolobok table. To download pictures, click on the image to open it in full expansion and save it to your computer.

The next version of the Kolobok puppet theater, which is easy to do with your own hands, is a production in which the child can see both the action in the hut and in the forest. To do this, the scenery is glued together at an angle, and during the performance the presenter turns it with the desired side towards the viewer. It should look like this.

You can download shape templates here

The third option is pictures for the Kolobok theater, which are a construction set. They need to be saved, printed, cut and glued according to the diagram.

The next finger theater, a paper bun, is assembled according to a certain pattern.

This option includes characters and scenery. The figures are assembled in such a way that they can easily stand on the table. You can download the Kolobok table theater for free by simply clicking on the images and saving them.

The fifth finger theater based on the fairy tale Kolobok - these are illustrations from the magazine “Murzilka”, familiar to all parents. You just need to download the pictures, print them, cut them out and assemble them according to the diagram.

The next home puppet theater Kolobok includes three-dimensional characters. A preschooler himself is unlikely to be able to cope with all the preparatory stages, so he will need the help of his parents. The result will be a real tabletop Kolobok theater, pictures for which can be downloaded for free.

And finally, we present the last option. This shadow theater Kolobok, which has become quite popular recently. But for it it is necessary to build a screen, which can be a white wall or a sheet, and proper lighting. Pictures for the Kolobok puppet theater need to be printed and cut out. You need to glue sticks to the figures, after which you can put on a real performance. This Kolobok finger theater, which a child can make with his own hands, will definitely interest him.