Puppetry With A Purpose
Fun Fact: When I was in 5th-7th grade I was part of my church’s puppet ministry. Each week we would practice the script with fellow puppeteers. Giggling and almost always goofing around with the puppets when the teacher wasn’t looking…we played with different voices, expression, and delivering the punch lines with great humor. While we were just enjoying the fun experience, my teacher took our role in her weekly production quite seriously because the purpose of us delivering the message of God each week, was to do so in a fun, meaningful, and engaging way that resonated with not only our proud parents, but the bored youth that sat amongst the pews. We made them laugh and smile each Sunday morning. Little did we know that our teacher was teaching us creative literacy skills that would come in handy for me as I pursued acting in my school plays and performing in front of people through dance and public speaking.
Incorporating puppet-centered instruction into your curriculum may seem of little interest to you…and I understand that most teachers are boggled down with the every day demands of test preparation, lesson plans, administration goals, etc. I get it.
But what if I told you, that puppets encourage language and literacy development in the primary and lower elementary grades. They foster rich and meaningful discussions around stories and reading and writing skills for all students…even those with learning disabilities. Most importantly, they encourage classmate collaboration and fluency, ALL aspects of fluency. So while “playing” with puppets might seen trivial, those little sock monkeys and finger puppets can actually play a powerful role in developing language and literacy skills.
Below you will find 10 benefits of incorporating puppetry into your primary and lower elementary instruction and some simple tips to get started!
10 Benefits:
Fosters creativity, imagination, and experimentation
Encourages children to build connections to characters and to the stories they retell
Enhances children's fluency in rate, expression, tone, and accuracy in reading words correctly though repeated reading
Teaches students verbal AND nonverbal communication
Fosters peer collaboration and strengthens social skills
Students will work on their gross and fine motor skills while manipulating the puppets in their performances
Puppets will help strengthen listening, speaking, memory recall, focus attention work
Students who struggle with learning disabilities, or are shy and timid, can find escape through puppet performances with a soft and comforting friend.
Puppet performances allow for children to learn about the artistic production process, including set design, puppet creation, lighting, sound, stage directions, reading scripts, general acting skills, voice control…and so much more. Planning a field trip to see a puppet show would connect all of these elements for children and inspire them even more!
My favorite benefit for incorporating puppets in the classroom is to tie their use to meaningful writing. Students can retell stories into scripts. This allows them to make connection and dive deeper into a story’s meaning. They have to then think of which important settings are valuable to retelling the story…which characters are the main and minor, and how does their appearance reflect their puppet construction. From plot development, assigning roles to each student, working on voice expression….they will be immersed in a truly creative and interactive extension of the story you just read in class! When students can put together a performance, every aspect of reading and literacy can be incorporated with obvious theater elements woven in there as well!
10 Ideas to Get the Puppet Party Started:
If you have an existing dramatic play center in your classroom, introduce a box of puppets to the classroom. Place it in your center along with a handmade or store-bought theater stage and watch the interaction and dialogue begin! Just let the kiddos explore and have fun with them!
Determine a story that the class wants to create into a script. Write a script together as a class. Assign roles for the production of the performance…and invite other classrooms into your classroom to watch. Incorporate more writing skills and have students create brochures, marketing signs to post around the school, an announcement to read over the sound system, and create classroom invitations and tickets.
3. Divide the class into groups. Assign each group a short story. Invite them to retell the story through a group script with the purpose of creating a formal puppet performance. Skills for this activity must be planned and scaffolded. Make a big deal about the performance day. Have kids get dressed up, allow for healthy snacks, and make it an enjoyable experience!
4. When teaching phonological skills, use the puppet yourself as you teach. If you have a Cookie Monster puppet or a chef puppet…have students only feed the puppet words that start with short a, or words that have two syllables, etc. Have the puppet nibble on a tiny hand every once in a while just for fun and giggles.
5. Introduce puppetry in the beginning of the year. Record the students’ performances throughout the year. Have them watch as a class, critiquing and giving feed back about what they learned, how they did, what could be improved. Talk to them about what fluency is. Create a rubric for puppet performances and incorporate these performances into your grade book . Using the collection of videos for your class, witness how much language and literacy skills they have improved throughout the year.
6. Work with your art teacher to create the ultimate set design and puppets. This would be a fun interconnected activity. Deliver fun awards to students or groups of students that recognize them for individual or group achievements with their performances. Plan an Oscar like award ceremony…assigning awards for Best Set Design, Most Creative Puppet, Silliest Puppet, Funniest Script…all the kids can earn an award for something offered during their performance!
7. Invite your music teacher to assist in creating sounds with instruments to use throughout the puppet performance. Have a performance jingle or theme to be played or sung during the show.
8. Host a night where parents can be invited to see puppet performances LIVE. Consider putting on a show at a local nursing home, the elderly love two things….children and entertainment!
9. Take a class field trip to a local puppet performance. Invite students to take notes on the performance and afterwards discuss how their own performances can be enhanced.
10. Encourage math, social studies, and science topics to be incorporated into scripts and puppet performances. After students learn a specific topic in the content areas, offer them the opportunity to demonstrate their learning using a creative puppet performance.
As you can see, there are SO many benefits to incorporating puppetry into your primary and elementary curriculum to enhance language and literacy skills. Try these 10 simple tips to get started and tell me in the comments below, additional creative ways you have used puppets within your own classroom. I’d love to hear your ideas!
