This half term students have been making puppets in Forest School. The first step was to make a small picture of their design on clay. This was done so that the students would be able to learn the process involved with making puppets, designing in clay, creating the mould and filing this with latex.
Now it was time to make the puppets themselves. First the pupils created their designs in clay, so that any changes that they wanted to make could be made easily. The process took the class about four weeks.
Once complete, the clay mould had to be cast in plaster so that the latex could be poured inside to make the puppets. Each student chose their own design and then made it by themselves. After the clay had been taken out of the mould, the latex was poured in and allowed to dry.
When this had dried, the puppet was then able to come out of the mould and be decorated to how each student wanted it to look. The students’ imagination saw them make a dinosaur, an old lady, 3 men (one possibly of our Forest School teacher Nick!) and a Lego Bionicle figure. The next step will be to create bodies for their puppets out of old clothes and other recycled items.
