Aesop's fables and puppets

Yesterday was World Animal Day and this was a great chance to use puppetry to bring Aesop's fables to life in my lessons. Aesop was a master of telling morality tales based on animal characters, often with a humorous twist. His tales reveal our stereotypical views and the symbolic meaning of animals: proud lions, busy bees, industrious ants and more.
The values of these fables can be highly underlined by the use of glove puppets or finger puppets.
Look at some of photos of my puppet friends

If you need any scripts on Aesop fables for puppetry play, you can resort to http://www.kidsinco.com/aesop-fables/.

For example you may want to take a look

The lion and the mouse: http://www.kidsinco.com/2008/08/the-lion-and-the-mouse/

The rooster and the fox: http://www.kidsinco.com/2016/01/the-rooster-and-the-fox/

The fox and the cat: http://www.kidsinco.com/2010/05/the-fox-and-the-cat/

If you have the classic books with Aesop fables you can also organize nice activities.

For example

1) You can have your own students dramatize the fables they like on their own way.

2) You can organize writing sessions aiming at writing your own scripts based on Aesop's fables. In this way, students will practice not only their reading but their writing skills as well. You can follow these steps:

a) Help your students write a brief description of the play in a story map which should contain the moral. the characters, the conflict/problem, the resolution and the props that are needed.

b) You have to urge them to identify the strong characteristics of each animal character in order to point them out and portray their personality.

c) Later on, they should try to create dialogues which should be quick, interesting and to the point.

d) You should remind your students that they have to pay attention to some theatrical elements. For example they should add some sound effects, timings (as in pause fot two seconds), they should consider about the staging directions for when props are used and how they should the characters should interact on stage or how they should leave the stage so as to change hands and puppets.

e) You may need a narrator to add some extra information about the setting and events that occur on stage.

f) When practicing, you should encourage your students have different and unique voicing.

g) When writing down the script you should urge students resort to repetitive phrases and distinct vocabulary for their characters that the audience will recognize or anticipate so as to get them involved throughout the play.