Puppet Show Play As A Bridge

Nourished by the richness of the Waldorf Kindergarten, my son has been developing his own "puppet shows" with his toys, completely self directed. I sit and watch mostly and I don't worry about things I could be doing, because I feel so full of joy seeing him engrossed in imaginative storytelling.

Puppet shows are traditional in the Waldorf nursery and kindergarten classroom. They have become a highlight for my son and he has noted they are full of "wonder". This aspect of "wonder" is then re-created in his home environment, making it different from other modes of play. It is the imitation of the nature of "wonder" that is the key here. His play becomes very calm and focused. The individual characters we have develop more and more meaning with each "puppet show".

This is markedly different from the inventive play of say making a ukulele into a canon with five different ways of launching, or tossing a chipmunk stuffy out of a fireman's hat to land on the couch (two things he has also been doing this week).

This form of play is directly related to storytelling and making meaning. He placed the acorn cap on the wooden doll and called her "Briar Rose", or "the baby that came from the thing the frog did". Today towards bedtime he noted that puppet shows sometimes require a lot of words and maybe I could help with that part, but when I tried to add to the story he said "just repeat after me". I said "okay, it can just be a simple story too, with a beginning, a middle, and an end". This idea was intriguing to him and he proceeded to direct the "puppet" play.

Perhaps these puppet shows are for my child a bridge to a world of wonder, a deeper level of imagination, or a key to a level of storytelling that creates meaning. Whatever they are, I am interested in this form of play and feel that the more you can give a child the opportunity to recreate this at home, if they are attending a school environment that does Waldorf puppet shows, the more they can inhabit the world of wonder in their own home rather than just at school and stoke the flame of their blossoming being.