Picture taken from: supercoolbaby.com
Hello everybody,
In this new post I am going to talk about how to use and teach using puppets in your classroom and some activities you can apply using this kind of material. First of all, I strongly believe that using puppets especially with little students from kinder garden and primary school is useful and very practical too.
I think that when children work and do activities using puppets they feel motivated and confident too why? Because sometimes we have students who never want to participate or speak during the class (shy students) I know we have to respect them if they do not want to participate might be they are in the silent period or they do not feel ready to speak or participate in certain activities for this reason, I believe that using puppets or creating puppets with simple material we can encourage these kind of shy students to participate and feel comfortable in class.
Picture taken from: pacon.com
For this reason, I want to share this experience I had the last year with one student from primary school who was very shy and never wanted to speak and participate during the class inclusive during games so, once I created a funny activity using puppets and it really worked because at the end it was the first time he spoke English in my class. This was the activity:
One day, I asked them to bring to the classroom a pair of socks for a surprise activity. The next day, I bring to the classroom bottoms of many different colours, little pieces of fomy’s paper, threadScissors, glue, etc. Then, I asked them to get in teams of three and I gave them the material I had and they started creating their own puppets. Once they created their own puppets, I explained them the activity (ROLE PLAY/SHORT CONVERSATION) and they did a great job, they enjoyed and got fun and finally the shy guy spoke his first words in English so I felt very happy for him.
- Picture taken from: puppetsbypost.com
That is why I strongly believe that if we as Teachers use puppets working with children they will feel motivated, encouraged, and comfortable without stress and sometimes they lose their fair to speak in English.
Finally, I think that puppets can be use specially for Oral ability, here I am going to share with all of you some activities I had used in my classroom using puppets:
- Role plays.
- Short conversation.
- To practice greetings.
- To describe their own puppets.
- To sing without fair.
- To emphasize the pronunciation of specific words.
- Sometimes your students express their ideas using puppets.
Picture taken from: sleepknitting.wordpress.com
Check this video is very interesting:
That’s it for today, have a nice day!
Good bye!
learning tools 
Comments on: "Using puppets in the classroom" (8)
i BELIEVE TO TEAC A SECOND LANGUAGE USING PUPPETS IS A CHALLENGE BECAUSE SOMETIMES WE ARE AFRAID OF LOOKING AS A CLOWN AND FOR A SHY TEACHER THIS IS GOING TO BE VERY DIFICULT SO AS TEACHER WE HAVE TO HAVE THE IDEA THAT A TEACHER SOONER OR LATER WE WILL HAVE TO DO IT.
Hello there!
It is a very interesting topic. The use of puppets for language instruction can be effective for young learners and so for adults. The latter can be as Missy Lardy says extremely difficult, but if the educator looks for everydady issues related to their environment; then using puppets becomes a killer activity.
Good post and video
Hello Martin,
Thank you for your comment!
ohh!! teacher Yesy, your students should love you so much, you have a great imagination, of course that puppets are excellent tools to teach English to little children; however we can use them in adults, tennagers and ederly people too; why? because they are funny (that is why the muppets babies came back this year). Puppets are very hepful in speaking activities, students enjoy to create dialogues using puppets because in this way they do not feel exposed to fail.
Thanks for sharing your experience “it is an art to work with kinder garden children.”
Thank you for your comments!
I agree with you! For me using puppets in the classroom had been a great experience and for my students too.
See you!
Children love puppets! That is right Yesy. Sometimes it is difficult to keep children’s attention, but if you show them a puppet, inmediately they are going to par attention to your class. I just want to talk about the risk of using this type of material,using puppets required a balance use; if students get used to be taught using puppets, then they are going to get bored or overwhelmed during the class, it could enhance their complai: “oohh puppets one more time..” to consider this suggestion could be a good idea.
What a nice surprise was is for me to see your post Jessy, it is very attractive and it makes fell like I want to be a kid again. It is important to learn about didactic material such these pupets, very versatyle in uses, all the potential but most of all, the attractiveness they have, specially when you woark with children, even though it can be used with students of all ages. A good example of pupets usage is “The mupets” the movie.
This is a very interesting post Yesy. I believe you have a great ability to work with children. As Richard mentioned above it really makes you want to be a child again. There are so many activities that can be design with the use of puppets. After reading your post I believe that they cannot only be used with children, but with yound adults as well. Your ideas are great and I believe they can be adapted to different teaching contexts. Thanks for sharing your great ideas.