Puppetry


 * Puppetry**

Puppetry is a process in which students and/or the teacher manipulate puppets to explore and respond to story, characters, issues, and information. The rich cultural traditions of puppetry (marionettes, shadow puppets, glove-puppets) offer many opportunities in predicting, planning, organizing, entertaining, and problem solving. Puppetry may be used to engage students in storytelling or to explore story and character possibilities in the pre-composition stage of writing. It can use role-play to explore different contexts and points of view for conflict resolution. Through puppetry, students are presented with new information and can use puppets to communicate understanding with less risk than with other approaches. Puppetry engages students readily by encouraging physical involvement, promoting social interaction, developing communication skills, and supporting role playing, improvisation, and storytelling.
 * Description**

The teacher:
 * Method**
 * models the process and its possibilities;
 * organizes time, space, and resources;
 * builds a climate for risk taking;
 * prompts students to extend thinking;
 * helps students to reflect on issues and problems that arose in performance.

Puppetry:
 * Considerations**
 * may not always need to be presented to an audience;
 * requires a supply of puppets or materials on hand to create them;
 * requires pre-planning to achieve expected results within the time available;
 * requires manipulation of puppets to ensure learning;
 * requires supervision, especially in the early stages of use;
 * requires monitoring of assigned roles and organization when a small group is involved.


 * Illustrations From The Mathematics Classroom**


 * Elementary**

[|Geo Jammin'] Geo George, the geometric puppet, introduces the unit to students. The children are drawn into a conversation with George to check for prior knowledge about shapes. Once relaxed and warmed-up, the class participates in taking the diagnostic assessment.

__Using Children's Literature__

 [|The Very Hungry Caterpillar Finger Puppet Book] The very hungry caterpillar eats his way through one week, spins a cocoon and sleeps for more than two weeks. Using an actual calendar gives children a hands-on experience with the calendar. Telling the story gives the children a great counting activity as well.

Activities
 * make a large calendar and pieces from story (there are many sources where you can find either blackline masters or cut up an old book), place velcro on backs of pieces and on calendar and place in math center.
 * use puppets to tell the story (Instructions for creating a [|caterpillar puppet] .)

 The grouchy ladybug goes about her day picking on other animals bigger than she is. This book introduces children to the clock and telling time. On each page there is a clock and a picture of the sun as it rises in the morning until it sets in the evening.

Activities
 * use a ladybug puppet to tell the story (Instructions for creating a paper plate [|ladybug puppet] . Instructions for making a [|ladybug finger puppet] .)
 * use a Judy clock or other demonstrator clock and have students actually change the time as you tell the story

Addition/Subtraction A hungry snake counts ten little mice. "little, warm and tasty," into a jar for his dinner. However, the clever little mice create a plan to fool the greedy snake and manage to escape.
 * Make mice puppets from pompoms, find a large clear jar and a stuffed snake. Tell the story using props. Stop several times during the story to count on and back (Instructions for making [|mice finger puppets] . Instructions for making a [|paper bag mouse puppet] .)

[|How to Use Puppets To Teach Math]


 * Secondary**


 * [|How to Use Puppets To Teach Math]
 * A percent song and puppet skit designed to help students remember the fundamentals of calculations involving percents. Gives a sense of how percent to decimal conversions work out. The audio is from my CD entitled "Math, Music and Mayhem". media type="file" key="Percent Song by Dave Mitchell.flv" height="270" width="360"
 * [|How Math Is Used To Animate Puppets in the Movies]