Toy Theater: Best Activity for Family and Class
Toy theater shrinks grand theater plays to TV size and makes all the plays in miniature under your control. Everyone can be the director, playwright, or star. You can buy stunning backgrounds, characters, and costumes off the shelf or make the whole toy theater set yourself. It's you to endow the entire story of toy theater and bring them to life. Toy theater is the best vintage activity for families and classes to give kids the most unforgettable childhood!
Why is Toy Theater the Best Activity for Family and Class?
1. Toy Theater Stimulates Kids' Creativity
Charles Dickens got his first toy theater at 6 years old. And he wrote his first tragedy called "Misnar, the Sultan of India" based on "The Enchantress" when he was 9. Toy theater gives kids a borderless platform to realize their whimsy. Kids need to create their favorite characters and plots infinitely. To draw inspiration for the toy theater, kids will observe the world and people around them more carefully.
2. Toy Theater Cultivates Kid's Sympathy
To enrich the play-ableness of toy theater, kids will try to create more characters, plots, and backgrounds. That's how kids might think in others' shoes. For example, kids may act like a mother and ask "their kids" to eat nutritionally balanced. Thus, kids can understand a mother's usual annoying nagging. With a complete storyline, kids may gradually find that bad guys do bad things for some reason, and heroes also have some shortcomings. With respect, adults can offer great guidance to kids' stories to help them establish the right values.
3. Toy Theater Discovers Kids' Passion
Kids are multi-tasking in the toy theater. They think of stories, act as characters, play the background music, and guide their partners on how to act as they want. Not limited to one, kids experience dozens or even hundreds of careers through toy theater. Keep observing to find your kids' passion and encourage them to move towards it in their future life.
How to Make a Toy Theater?
1. Things You Are Going to Made
1) Fold out stage
2) curtain for the stage
3) double-sided scenes
4) characters that you want
5) Above 2 character sliders
2. Materials You Are Going to Prepare
1) Cardboards
2) Glue
3) Cloth material (not necessary)
4) Scissors and craft knife
5) Colored brush
3. Steps to Make a Toy Theater
1) Draw the characters and background in the size you want
2) Cut out the painted background and characters
3) Make a cuboid stage with cardboard. Leave the left and right ends for people to come in and out, and leave the front end for viewing
4) Make curtains that can be rolled up on the left and right, and two sliding bars for characters in the middle of the floor
5) Build everything with glue and try if it works
Shortcomings of Making Toy Theater by Yourself
1. It is time-consuming to make a number of backgrounds and characters by yourself
2. The materials may be worn out easily
3. It is annoying to clean up
Benefits of Making Toy Theater by Yourself
1. Making a toy theater by yourself can customize all things your kids like
2. Making toy theater can increase your kids' hands-on ability
3. It is fun to create everything with kids!
4. You can create scenarios as much as kids want
5. It's much cheaper to make the whole set by yourself
Scripts Recommended
For kids, it is more realistic to let them re-enact their favorite scenes from the cartoon or movies they like before they create their own stories.
Kids can start with Disney and Pixar movies like "Frozen" and " ToyStory", or Andersen's Fairytales like "Snow White", "The Emperor's New Clothes" and "The Little Match Girl".
After getting used to the mode of toy theater, kids can begin their own creation of the play.
Other Activities for Family and Class
Opposite to the most vintage activity of toy theater, playing with coding robots is the latest trendy activity that exercises kids' STEM abilities. Like toy theater, kids can enjoy building fun and creativity by playing with coding robots. Coding and programming are just like writing the plots and stringing all the plots together into a complete story. Robots are another kind of character for kids to take the adventure with. Here are some coding robots for different ages.
1. mTiny (for Age 4+)
mTiny is certified for educational quality by "Education Alliance Finland" and awarded the design award of "Reddot". mTiny is an entry-level robot for preschoolers.
mTiny supports tangible programming learning with screen-free coding cards, themed maps, and a tap pen. Kids need no device to play and learn with mTiny.
mTiny is a highly interactive robot that laughs and cries with sounds and expressions to cheer kids up. Kids can customize multiple appearances for mTiny as they like. The material of mTiny is eco-friendly and totally safe for kids.
Apart from developing kids' art and literature talents through toy theater, you can buy kids mTiny to help them with math, music, and coding!
2. mBot Neo with coding boxes (for Age 8+)
mBot Neo is the best helper to enhance children's hands-on and logical thinking skills as a buildable coding robot. With various game-based coding boxes, mBot Neo supports illustrated step-by-step guides and crazy-fun coding project games.
mBot Neo supports voice control and smart cameras. Kids can even customize mBot Neo with LEGO bricks, electronics modules, and add-on packs. It is endless fun for kids to discover robotic coding, game development, AI, and data science topics.
3. mBot Ultimate (for Age 12+)
mBot Ultimate is a 10-in-1 building robotic kit for kids above 12 or adults who love robot toys. mBot Ultimate has 10 forms. It was fun to use it grabbing, climbing, and detecting. As a robotic kit that suits seniors, the mBot Ultimate has more possibilities and fun to build and code.
mBot Ultimate is compatible with both Arduino and Raspberry Pi. Teachers can use mBot Ultimate to teach students programming such as Scratch block-based programming, the Arduino IDE, and Python.