Shrek The Musical

The puppets created for this production of Shrek The Musical were designed to show the unique personality of each character – like Dragon! Remember the dragon puppet – what did you see that helped you understand that Dragon is both a fire-breathing ferocious beast and also head-over-heels in love with Donkey? Now it’s your turn to create your unique puppet character with Chicago Children’s Museum.

Chicago Children's Museum’s Paper Hat Puppet Lesson Plan
Materials:

• Imagination
• Large brown paper bag
• Tacky glue in cups with popsicle sticks
• Scissors, hole punchers
• Colorful paper, tissue paper, scrap paper, streamers
• Fabric scraps

Instructions:
Discuss how characters in Shrek The Musical wish to celebrate being uniquely different and special. Discuss what makes your child’s favorite Shrek character special. Ask your child what unique qualities make them different or special.  Then, encourage your child to imagine a character they would like to become and its qualities. Demonstrate the concept of character transformation by placing on a sample reversible character hat puppet. Explain how the hat puppet allows you to transform into a variety of characters or even a unique version of yourself! Invite your child to create hats that allow them to transform themselves into a variety of characters.

• Display options of character transformation on a reversible hat that depicts either:
  • Your face on side and a character on the opposite, or…
  • Two different characters, or…
  • One character that changes qualities or characteristics on either side of the hat
• Ask your child what characters they pretend to be while playing.  Do they have special powers?  Do they walk or talk differently?  Do they look different? Do they dress up?
• Suggest how materials can be used in unique ways to create the character hat puppet.
• Roll up the open end of the paper bag so it fits snugly on the child’s head.
• Encourage the child to try on their hat puppet and display their character’s greatness!

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