I discovered The Paper Bag Princess, by Robert Munsch and illustrated by Michael Martchenko, because several kids had asked for a dragon story. I thought that I must be one of the few people in the world who had missed this story, which was published in 1980, but most of the parents were not familiar with it. Everyone thought preschool was a great time to expose their kids to this story of a strong princess who outsmarts the dragon, rescues her prince, and then decides not to marry the snobbish and self-absorbed prince after all.
Page the Bookworm loved the fact that he got to wear a dragon mask to portray his gargantuan relative. 
And I was thrilled to have a perfect use for the miniature paper bags one of the mothers had donated recently. I have already talked about the wonderful doll pattern by Noreen Crone-Findlay, the Flat Fanciful Doll. I also found this template for the princess’s head at My Activity Maker.
For the dragon, I adapted this simple finger puppet pattern from Craft Ideas for All.
It was easy for the kids to make, and they had fun playing with them.
For his music and movement segment of Page Presents, the wonderful Mr. Matt revisited baroque dance forms. And for my puppet show, I built a castle and cave out of the large foam puzzle pieces that we have for kids to play with in our children’s room. These tiles seem to be intended for flooring, but kids adore building structures with them. They made an impressive castle for my puppet show that was also easy to demolish. The section that was still standing became the dragon’s cave.
After the story, the kids created their own dragon and princess puppets!
