Stick puppets

That's my mom

The family photos were up on the wall, and one child stood in front of theirs with a hand over it so the others couldn't look.

“That's my mom.”

And that was as far as it got.

So an adult took a popsicle stick, stuck a bit of velcro on the end, and showed them how a photo goes on it.

After that the others fetched their own family photos and made theirs.

Then an adult sang it, the way the song goes: “Where's mommy?”

One child pulled the mommy out of the handful they were holding and held it up.

The others came round to show theirs, and then the whole lot went down on the floor and they picked each one up as the song got to it.

Gone, and then up again

The sticks had their own faces on them, and they went through the basket looking for their own.

One pointed at a friend's and said the name.

An adult dropped one down into a paper cup. “She's gone! Come out — peekaboo!” And up it came over the rim.

Hands went out for the cup and the stick.

“Shall we hide it again?”

After that they were pushing the sticks down and up, down and up, and pulling them right out of the cups.

Then one child fetched stickers and put one on a face, and the others started sticking them all over theirs. An adult peeled the hard ones half off and left them on the corner of the table, or on the back of a hand, to be picked up.

I haven't got one

One child looked at the sticks for a while, then: “I want to draw.”

Paper and crayons came out. They laid a stick down on the paper and drew round the shape of it.

Later another child took the one a friend was holding.

“That's mine.”

“Sorry. I haven't got one.”

“Where's yours, then? Shall we go and look?”

They went over to where the sticks are kept, and it was there.

“There's mine!”

And a hand went straight up in the air.

Mommy. Mommy.

One child saw the stick with the face on it.

“Mommy. Mommy.”

“That's not mommy, that's me.”

And it came back, most of the word anyway.

An adult held it closer, and that child came over and had a feel of it.

Run, pig

An adult had made the three pigs and the wolf, three of each, and left them in a basket. The story had been read on the Tuesday.

They came in and picked up a wolf and a pig.

“The wolf's scary.”

“Run, pig!”

Then the cardboard bricks came over. A house went up, a pig went inside, and the wolf knocked the wall down with a tap.

Somebody else built a house and got inside it themselves, holding their own.

An adult was the wolf for a while.

Don't

“What's that?”

“Dinosaurs on sticks. Do you want to play?”

“Me too!”

They went through them and named each one.

“This one's a stegosaurus.”

“This one's a T. rex.”

Then they took the one they wanted and walked it about. The one with wings flew.

One child brought theirs up close, coming at another one.

“Don't!”

And it stopped there. After that they said which one they were having, and waited if somebody else had it.

I'm a hippo in a green coat

The sticks came out in colors. One child took one and handed it over.

“You do it.”

“Hello. I'm a bear in a yellow coat.”

“I'm a hippo in a green coat.”

My mom does the computer

They were playing with the family ones.

“My mom does the computer at home.”

“My dad wears smart clothes and goes to work.”

It went round like that, each of them saying what theirs did.

An adult listened to it, and thought the real things might do more in the room than the photos. So a note went home that day: could you send something in of mom's or dad's by Wednesday, with a name on it so it finds its way back.

The arms move

They decorated the sticks however they liked, then twisted pipe cleaners on for arms and legs.

“The arms move.”

“It looks like somebody dancing.”

They bent them into one position after another.

Then an adult said that next week they could hold them up to a light and make shadows with them.

“I want to do it now.”

“What will my one's shadow look like?”

Then we'd need a boat

There were outlines of children from other countries to color in. They each picked one, colored it, cut it out, and taped a chopstick to the back.

After lunch two of them went behind the blackboard and held theirs up over the top of it.

It was too high, so a chair came over and they climbed onto that.

An adult brought the puppet theatre out instead. They stood it on a table, sat down, and carried on from there — singing along with it, laughing.

Two others had theirs over by the world map.

“I'm going to Japan.”

“Shall we go to America?”

Then they worked out what to go on. A boat, they decided. So a boat had to be built.