Preschool children love games with role assignments, enjoying pretending to be different characters. That is why, at matinees in kindergartens, every child gets his “minute of fame” when he recites a rhyme dressed as a snowflake or a bunny. But holidays don’t happen every day, and it’s always interesting to try yourself as an artist. If you notice a craving for theatrical creativity in your child or, conversely, you want to awaken it, sew a finger theater from felt with your own hands. Patterns for this game are usually very simple, and its benefits are difficult to overestimate.
Visiting a fairy tale
Theatrical action is intended not so much to entertain the viewer as to educate, learn lessons from what he sees, and project a fictional plot onto his life. Finger theater performances help children survive stressful situations and adapt to a social environment. This is especially useful for children who have recently started attending kindergarten - in the form of a game, you can teach your child to meet and communicate with new friends, and resolve conflicts. In addition to this, the finger theater still has a fairly long list of advantages:
- Performances develop thinking and concentration. To show even a very simple scene, you need to remember its plot;
- If memory still fails, it’s time for improvisation: never scold a child for forgetfulness - let him fantasize to his heart’s content, changing the action and characters at his own discretion;
- The finger theater teaches you to cope with anxiety. By showing the skit to the audience, the baby becomes an actor, he enters into the role, forgetting about his fears and embarrassment;
- By memorizing or inventing lines, changing intonations to portray different characters, the child quickly expands his vocabulary;
- The finger movements themselves are excellent gymnastics for fine motor skills, which helps to activate thought processes, speech development, and prepares the hand for writing;
- Finger theater performances relax the child, and at this moment he is open to gentle pedagogical influence. In the form of a game, you can teach your child to brush his teeth, wash his hands, say hello, thank you, etc. The finger theater will teach you to value empathy, friendly help, and instill respect for elders and politeness.
It’s good if the roles of the finger theater are distributed among several children - working in a group fosters tolerance and teaches communication. As practice shows, children who are captivated by theatrical performances become more relaxed, self-confident, and open to new knowledge.
Instructions for creating a mini-theater
In order to make a finger theater at home you must have:
- Fabrics of different colors and textures (you can use felt).
- Non-woven fabric. It will help glue small parts.
- Embroidery thread (preferably floss).
- Wooden slats to create a theater frame for finger characters (horizontal slats should be 45 cm long, and vertical slats should be 30 cm long. There should be 4 sticks in total).
- Scotch.
- Gouache.
- Cardboard (preferably thick).
- Fabric for sewing curtains for a small theater (you can take silk).
- To design the rear view, you will need bright color pictures.
Making a stage for performances
Theater manufacturing process:
- The first step is to fasten the wooden slats together with glue.
- The finished beauty frame can be painted (preferably white).
- In order to make a sign for an improvised theater, you can use thick cardboard. You need to draw a template on cardboard, cut it out and color it with prepared gouache or ordinary felt-tip pens. In this case, the cardboard can be purchased, or you can use an unnecessary box from a game or equipment that everyone has in the house.
- The sign should be cut along the contour in such a way that you can later make two longitudinal puzzles. Then the sign needs to be secured to a base of wooden slats.
- The next point of work will be creating the background of the theater. To do this you need to cut out a piece of cardboard. The cardboard will have a length of 45 cm and a height of 30 cm. You must make 4 notches in the cardboard so that you can then insert pictures of the size of a landscape sheet into them. In order for the cardboard to be fixed to the wood base, you need to make special small slots. The details are ready. Now you need to secure them to the base and hang curtains made of silk or other material. The material can be tied with a beautiful ribbon or lace, or simply fall in an even line. Curtains can be attached to a slatted base using thread, wire or tape.
Preparation of materials
In order for the finger theater to show interesting fairy tales, the number of figures must be large enough, but don’t let this fact scare you - you can take one simple pattern as a basis and sew all the characters according to it. Of course, the details will have to be worked out separately, but believe me, this activity is very exciting. Involve the child in the process, let him decide for himself which characters need to be sewn, because the finger theater is intended for him.
Whatever decision is made, you will need a basic set of materials and tools:
- Sheets of felt in different colors - the more the better. Choose a medium thickness so that the products are durable, but not too thick;
- Threads in shades matching the felt;
- Scissors, a set of sewing needles;
- Felt pens (to draw faces and muzzles of characters);
- Glue Moment; or any other that dries instantly.
If possible, you can buy ready-made eyes and noses for the figures, stock up on various ribbons, beads, and scraps of fabric. In general, as soon as you decide to sew a finger theater with your own hands, stop throwing away your sewing accessories - everything will come into use.
I would also like to talk about felt. Why do many needlewomen choose it? The material is good for its strength and ease of processing; sewing from it is simple and pleasant. Felt does not crumble at the edges, it is convenient to make patterns on it. For the development of sensory sensations, the contact of fingers with the soft surface of felt is also very useful.
Let's start creating
So, before we start creating artists for the finger theater from felt, we need to prepare our hands and all the tools and materials for our business. First of all, these are, of course, sheets of felt, varied and multi-colored. You can purchase thin sheets ; they will not add excessive volume to our toys, but they will not tear after the first use, and they are also pleasant to the hands. You can choose the color scheme of felt according to your taste and desire, choose any scarf for your grandmother, and pants and a cap for your grandfather. But of course, we know that the sun should be yellow and the crocodile should be green.
What do you need for work?
- multi-color felt, plain or with a self-adhesive base;
- sheets of white paper;
- pencils;
- scissors;
- brush;
- PVA glue or Moment;
- reinforced threads of different colors;
- needle or sewing machine;
- lace;
- beads and rhinestones;
- small buttons or small eyes for dolls;
- tailor's pins.
Safety precautions
Before we begin, let’s remember the basic safety rules when working with needles and scissors.
Store needles and pins in a special place (a needle case); you should also not put pins and needles in your mouth and do not stick them into clothing. Do not use rusty needles or pins in your work; under no circumstances leave scissors with open blades while working on a doll. Do not cut while moving. To make patterns for a finger puppet, it will not require much time from you. And, of course, you need to have a good mood and a burning desire to make a felt finger theater with your own hands. Usually, you can come up with patterns for fairy tale heroes yourself, using ordinary geometric shapes and your imagination, or you can print out the fairy tale heroes you like, these are people, grandfather, grandmother, granddaughter, these are animals, a fox and a wolf, a mouse and a bunny, a bear and a frog . You can sew a house that will serve as a stage for many fairy tales, Teremok, Turnip, Ryabka and many others. We will make toys approximately 8–9 cm long. Both adults and children will be able to play in the finger theater with their small fingers.
Didactic manual made from felt “Finger Theater”
Severchukova Marina Aleksandrovna
Didactic manual made from felt “Finger Theater”
FINGER THEATER is an exciting didactic game that:
-stimulates the development of fine motor skills;
-introduces the child to such concepts as shape, color, size;
-spatial perception (concepts: right, left, next to each other, etc.)
;
- develops imagination, memory, thinking and attention;
-helps develop vocabulary and activates speech functions;
– develops creative abilities and artistic skills;
-introduces basic mathematical concepts;
Finger theater is a set of character figures that are put on a separate finger . These could just be individual dolls, animals, well-known characters from our favorite Russian folk tales.
Theater is a role-playing game in which even the most shy child feels relaxed and free. Children, performing a performance together, learn to communicate with each other, their speech is actively developing, and the ability to control the plot of the game.
Dolls develop mobility of the fingers of both hands , help develop vocabulary and activate speech functions, and help master the speech of characters.
Goal: to develop fine motor skills of the hands in combination with speech; development of communicative abilities of preschool children in the process of finger theater .
Objectives: Teach children to act out small plays, skits, fairy tales using a finger theater ; develop speech, thinking, memory, attention, creative imagination; enrich vocabulary; evoke positive emotions; instill a sustainable interest in the theater .
Finger theater and games with fingers develop the child’s brain, stimulate speech development, creativity , and imagination of the baby. Simple movements help to remove tension not only from the hands themselves, but also to relax the muscles of the whole body. They can improve the pronunciation of many sounds. The better the fingers and the entire hand work , the better the child speaks.
One of the most favorite activities among preschool children is finger theater . It not only promotes the development of fine motor skills (which has a beneficial effect on the development of speech and prepares the hand for writing, but also develops creativity and relieves emotional stress).
Finger theater is the basis for developing abilities and talents. Finger puppets can be made from paper, knitted or sewn. I chose for myself the technology of making a finger theater from felt - a material that is easy to process and does not require additional operations for processing sections. In craft stores, it is presented in a wide range of colors (with the help of colored pencils it can be easily shaded, with different thicknesses and densities, at an affordable price. The most important characteristic of felt is its naturalness and safety for health.
The puppets can be inserted into decorations, worn on fingers , or used as a tabletop theater .
Our children began playing with these dolls with pleasure, playing the role of any hero. Such games develop children's imagination, speech, memory, and attention. In addition, finger theater is a game that promotes the development of fine motor skills of the hands, prepares the hand for writing, develops creativity , and relieves emotional stress.
Felt products can also be used like flannelgraphs. I made a small tablet (I covered a hard folder for papers with felt
This puppet theater can be used to stage any fairy tale, and you can also come up with your own stories.
