S By Sue Davis Gabbay Help Your Child Get into Character Now your puppet is ready to “come to life” with the help of your child’s imagination. Story and nursery rhyme characters for the felt board can be traced from books and cut out from the felt pieces. Keep it simple. You want to leave something to your child’s imagination so he can create his own characters. That’s the fun of creating your personal story, and it also helps to keep your child occupied for longer periods of time! Making Your Felt Board For the felt board use an 8x11-inch manila folder and self-sticking felt square. Select a light-colored square for the background so that the figures you make will show up clearly; glue this to the inside of the folder on both sides. The felt may be larger than the folder but you can easily trim it to size. By using a folder instead of a piece of cardboard you can also store your felt story pieces in the folder and write the name of the rhyme or story on the outside. You can collect several of these and put them in a small file box to be kept in the car just for traveling. That way they won’t be used on a daily basis and the children will not get bored with them. It can be their special treat for long car rides like vacations and trips to Grandma’s house. Making your props Most rhymes and short stories have more than one or two characters, so keep the character patterns to a size that will fit more than one at time on the felt board. You can match the characters to a story or rhyme for make general cutouts that you can draw yourself so you child can make up her own version of a favorite tale or create a new story. Not just for car rides anymore There are several ways of using these story puppets and felt board stories when not riding in a car. For finger puppets, you can be the storyteller or the puppeteer; take turns and let your child tell part of the story or rhyme and manipulate the puppets. You may want to make a separate set for this so your child will have something different to use when riding in the car. A felt board is an interactive prop for storytelling. For example, you can tell the story and your child could call out which character to put on the board, or put the characters on the board as you introduce them. I have a happy memory of a two-year-old grandchild as I showed him a popular children’s story. As each animal in this story appeared, he eagerly said, “How ‘bout ‘nother one?” Try finger puppets or felt boards and I think you will see just how much fun your child can have while riding in the car and the two of you can have at home! Susan Gabbay, born in Charlottesville, Va., grew up in Bloomington, Indiana. She has an AB degree from Indiana Univ., and an MLS from Syracuse Univ. She spent several years as children’s librarian in Liverpool, NY and in Fairfax County Va. She has four children, 9 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild. Susan enjoys writing, mainly children’s stories and retold folktales. ummer is upon us and so are long car rides to varying destinations. From the back seat, you hear some version of “Are we there yet?” for the umpteenth time. What to do? Planning ahead can help and it does not take magic... or does it? With just a bit of advance preparation, you can make magic of these moments easily and inexpensively. The secret to this magic is a plastic sandwich bag containing two or three finger puppets representing a nursery rhyme or story, or - abracadabra - open a big envelope containing a small felt board and felt cutouts. Now your child can magically create her personal story with just these simple props and a little imagination. Getting Started Before Those Car Rides Creating simple and portable finger puppets or felt boards can be a matter of taking an hour or two to prepare the materials. All you will need are felt squares of various colors, scissors, a few fabric scraps, and a manila file folder. Begin by cutting two pieces for the finger puppet. Stitch or glue around the puppet from side to side, leaving the lower end open for your finger. Use googly eyes and small felt piece to create a face, ears for animal characters and even clothes for the puppet character using the fabric scraps. These can be glued on with felt glue available at craft stores. Characters from “The Little Red Hen” as felt cut-outs, ready for a creative story retelling by your child. 2013 • Issue 3 Piedmont Family Magazine 21