Puppets

Puppets are very useful tools to encourage creative play and vocabulary development. They can be also great for us (teachers) to help we feel comfortable. In fact, they’re not only extremely useful as an educational toy that connects play with learning but also in supporting children’s development in several important areas.

When we use puppets, stories come to life so that the telling of the story becomes an enriched, fun learning experience that is even more meaningful for children. The puppets can speak, sing, dance, cry...There is truly no limit to their use because there is no specific way to use them that’s correct.

I believe that the most important thing, as teachers, is be able to motivate our children. In my humble opinion, this is a really useful way to keep our students engaged and enhance the interaction.  What I mean is that, by capturing children’s attention, motivating them, they will learn more.

Personally I think I will use puppets in my future class. Nevertheless, I think they are very expensive and I would like to have several puppets so, instead of buying them, I will do them by myself.  To make them we need imagination and very cheap materials such as socks, felt, glue, cardboards...

To end, I leave you some examples of puppets (sock puppet and finger puppets) that I have made and the video that I recorded with my classmates.  

Butterfly sock puppet 

The ugly duckling finger puppets 

The ugly duckling finger puppets