Marionet Teatret - Free Puppet Theatre for Kids

There are free puppet theater for kids in Copenhagen at the King's Garden (Kongens Have) during the summer period. Below are the details:

Performances:
3. & 4. june: 2 pm & 3 pm
6. june – 23. june: 10 am & 11 am – weekends 2 pm & 3 pm
24. june – 20. august: 2 pm & 3 pm
Performances every day, except Monday

Address: Kronprinsessegade 21, 1306 København K
Tel: 33 12 12 29
www.marionetteatret.dk/

Here is the map from Google:

J Summary (5Y1M2W) - Theatre Play

Today, J suggested to play with finger theatre. I helped him to set up the stage. His own idea to use the lap-table. He made two pieces of theatre play in Danish, which I believed was inspired from his music class and the theatre play we brought him to and the fairytales he listened on iPad. I recorded them down for memories.

 

How to Improve the Danish Language Level of Your Kids?

The challenges of a trilingual family is huge. The effort it takes to nurture three languages in a normal child requires courage, determination, strategizing, risk management and a lot of time and commitment and an unwavering faith in God... unless your child is a language genius.

It takes courage, because I sometimes wonder if my decision may cause J to end up being half-past-six with all three languages. Yet, fearful as I am and treading this untrolden path, I am not able and unwilling to give up on any of the languages - Chinese, English and Danish. They are all part of J's cultural heritage. He needs all three languages to navigate effectively among his countrymen. And I consider his countrymen both Danes and Singaporeans.

We will walk on... that is one of the reasons why I chose to go part-time. Everyday, we have to revise 3 languages, although I must admit I don't get to  do it everyday. Alas, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

On Saturdays, a total of 3 hours are devoted to Chinese class, excluding homework.

On Sundays, a total of 2 hours are devoted to English via international church.

On Thursdays, it is either Danish theatre, volunteering at the Senior centre with the Chinese old people or playdates with Danish kids.

To be fair, J's Danish so far is on part with the Danish kids (and at the last assessment on the higher end of the scale). He doesn't need extra classes offered to other immigrant kids. But I am not sitting on my laurels. Here are a few ideas how to enhance the Danish language of your child:

1. Bring your child to Danish children's theatre

Since a toddler of 1.5 year old, the Danish teachers told us that J really loves theatre. I didn't capitalize on that by bringing him to theatre, because I don't like theatre.

However, recently my Singaporean friend, A, in Copenhagen taught me that one of the ways to enhance the command the Danish language is to expose your child to theatre. She and her hubby love to watch plays. But my SO and I do not. And I am totally theatre illiterate. For me to research on theatre and plays would be the most boring things I have to do. So, she did all the research, and I just tag along. I am really thankful for her generosity.

So, every other Thursday on my day off, we will bring our kids to the children Danish theatres. It does cost money - 125 DKK for adult and 55 DKK for children.

Here are some links if you are cross-cultural families like us:

http://www.riddersalen.dk/default.asp?side=2&id=284

http://www.zangenbergsteater.dk/?side=3

Kudos to my friend A and her daugher S. The division of labour to nurture the language development of our children!

If money may be an issue, below are three other ideas which do not cost any money.

3 October 2014 - Engelsbørne

2. Danish churches children's activities

Many Danish churches have excellent and free programs for children. Here is the website of a Danish church children's program near to where we live:

http://sorgenfrikirke.dk/aktiviteter/boerneliv-i-kirken/nyhedsbrevet-boern-i-sorgenfri-kirke/

3. Danish libaries for children

The Danish libraries have excellent and free programs for children too. Here is one from the library near our place:

https://www.lyngbybib.dk/boernearrangementer

4. Have playdates with Danish kids

Every third Thursday, when we are not volunteering at the Senior centre for the Chinese and Danish old folks in Denmark, and when we are not going to theatres, I will arrange playdates for J with his classmates.

It is actually not so hard, and does not demand so much of my time. You just let them play, while you prepare dinner for the family. Of course, it will take a bit of your time with supervision.

With prayers and trust in God, we will walk on this cross-cultural journey together that will be part of our lives for eternity... We are also very thankful and feel very blessed that we are able to take our kids to Danish theatre on Thursdays.

DIY Floor or Table-Top Children's Puppet Theatre with Cardboard

14 April 2012 - Completed with curtains sewn by my sweet mother-in-law. We used golden as the colour for the frame and
red for the curtains to mirror real-life theatre above

9 April 2012 - Work in progress still missing painting and the curtains... but Joshua started playing with it happily...

Age: From 2 years old

Puppet Theatre

I have been wanting to make a puppet theatre for a long time, but did not find the time for it. It was not an option to buy it, because those from Amazon are small, chunky and unfunctional, and horrendously expensive. Then I forgot all about it. This Easter holidays, I wanted to tell the story of Good Friday and Easter and Joshua wanted to use the puppets. But I hadn't the appropriate puppets, nor the puppet theatre at hand! Neverthesless, God did his sovereign work and just over 3 year old Joshua accepted Christ into his life. Yes, truely it was with God's amazing grace. You can read the post here. For the rest of the Easter holidays, I was working on making the puppet theatre. I made two  - one for Joshua and the other for the church nursery, as I think puppet theatre is a wonderful way to tell Bible stories during Sunday School and Church nursery.

The basic puppet theatre is completed, and Joshua started playing with it. Here he is performing a magic show of disappearing cakes with his teddy bears. But I intend to sew a red curtain for it using some old pieces of red silk cloth from my Cheonsam. I will post a picture, when the curtain is completed. It can also be decorated.

Updates 15.4.2012

My mother-in-law was very kind to help me to sew the curtains, and Florian helped me to paint it. We chose gold as the colour for the frame and red for the curtains to mirror real life theatre. Maybe we might draw some decorative roman colummns on it, but for now it is completed :-)

Dimensions of frame:

Inner dimension: 90 x 60cm

Outer dimenion: 120 x 100cm

How?

1. This cardboard puppet thatre is very simple. It consists of 4 pieces of cardboard folded as follows:

2. After folding, just tape it down the top and bottom fold behind to make it stay in place:

3. The fold serve as the support to make it stand nicely without topping over.

4. Attach curtains with strings behind (optional) and you are ready to go :-)

You can also make a cloth one here. The advantage is that it is easy to store them. The disadvantage is that you need a door to hold it together.

Time:

The actual time is 1 hour, but the actual thinking process took me longer, total 2 hours. However, the trip to source for unwanted cardboard from IKEA packaging took time.

Puppets:

If you have the time, you can make your own puppets. Since I do not have the time, I have found some Biblical character glove puppets from Amazon for children 3 - 7 years old, and will be checking them out:

Bible Story Figurines

If you could not afford to buy real puppets above, don't be too disappointed. I have found a good website showing a cheap and great way to make Bible story figurines. You can simply print them and stick them to ice-cream sticks. Check it out here:

http://www.biblestoryprintables.com/TutorialBibleFigures.html
http://www.biblestoryprintables.com/BibleStoryFigures2.html

Activity:

For ideas on how to carry out an activity with puppet theatre, see my previous post here.

I found some fantastic puppet scripts here:

http://www.squidoo.com/Puppet-Scripts
http://www.missionaryresources.com/free_scripts.html

References:

http://www.puppets-puppets.com/Bible_Puppets_s/63.htm

http://www.thepuppetstore.com/Biblical_s/62.htm

http://www.child-bible-lessons.com/puppet-ministry.html

http://deniseoliveri.suite101.com/how-to-start-a-puppet-ministry-a18648
http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/seo/ca%7CsearchResults~~p%7C2534374302222474~~.jsp

If you prefer to buy a puppet theatre instead of making your own, there is a similar one from Melissa and Doug from Amazon:

References:

http://sugartotdesigns.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/console-tv-makeover.html

Fun with Language through Puppet Theatre Play for Toddler

Age: From 2 years old

Objective(s):
1. To train child against stage fright and to perform in public.
2. To provide a fun way of teaching language through interesting story-telling with the use of a stage.

Materials:
1. 1 Play Theatre
2. 3-5 puppets
3. A book to enact the scene after reading it

Directions:
1. Read the book to your child.

2. Pick a scene that is suitable to be enacted out and act it out for your child.

3. Encourage your child to try.

Tips:
1. You can depict a biblical scene after reading a children's Bible story to your child or in the church nursery.

2. Sometimes, it can be rather monotonous to recite Tang dynasty poems. Thus, we hope to be able to incorporate that into theatre play, but I haven't found the time to implement all my ideas yet!

3. When the children are older, a shakespeare scene can also be enacted.

Cost:
1. Play theatre: approx. 30 DKK from the flea market (you can also buy it from Amazon, but it is expensive, or make it yourself using card board or 4 planks of wood)

2. You can get finger puppets from IKEA.

Additional Information:
This is a brillant idea by my friend YL, who introduced it to her then 2 years old daughter, A. I don't have a play theatre yet, but will be looking out for it. A is getting really good at it, and above is a picture of her performing for us during our Chinese Playgroup on 12 March 2011. It is very inspiring to J too.

I hope I can introduce this to our church's nursery one day.