Hand shadow puppet show...

Be sure to view this video in "full screen" mode in order to appreciate the small details the puppet master incorporates into his hand shadows.

Here is an instructional video from About.com on how to make hand shadow puppets, and here is a page which illustrates how to do many hand shadow animals from haha.nu.

Here is a page a Shadow-Puppets.com that gives some history of hand shadow puppets. On the same site, there are more illustrations of how to do hand shadow puppets.

Here is A Brief History of Puppetry at SunnieBunniezz.com where they describe all types of puppets. These pages are great for all ages, including younger elementary children.

Finally, here are instructions on how to make silhouette puppets - great for younger children whose fingers aren't coordinated enough to do some of the difficult shapes required for the hand shadow puppets (as well as us less coordinated "older" kids!). This is from a cool web site called Unplug Your Kids - what a great name!