Puppetools

12. November 2008 by Shannon.

As part of the TOS Crew, I’ve been given the opportunity to review www.puppetools.com - a website dedicated to learning through play, particularly with PUPPETS!  Now, we all know kids learn well from puppets… after all, it is to puppets that Sesame Streets owes it’s incredible (and very long running) success in the children’s education television milieu, right?  So, I was very interested in learning more about this resource.

After checking out the site to the best of my abilities (I”m on dial-up and there are a lot of videos that took forever to play, but I did download a and read a lot of the literature available to members)earlier this week, I made a date to head over to my sister’s yesterday, who is also (very newly) homeschooling my neice. My sister has a educational background of “Educational Resources and Special Needs”.  She is VERY crafty and imaginative on things like that, and even has a “clown ministry”… SO, ya, right up her alley.

I explained what I understood (from watching all that I COULD watch and reading as many pdfs as I could find on the site)… and we set up little tables, and made puppets with a 3.5 year old, an almost 6 year old and a 7.5 year old.  They liked it, I guess.. but it was my neice (at 7.5) that got really into it.  They played with them for about 15 minutes afterwards before heading off to play with other things.  Hmm, it didn’t mesmerize them as much as I initially thought.  I started to wonder about maybe the age range and application of this tool, so…

I made a puppet too!  Yup, UNcrafty me made François la grenouille (Frances the Frog - in french… sorry, bad pun, but I like it.. French Quebeckers are often called “frogs” .. not sure why, but when I was thinking of making a tool to encourage the Littles to try to speak french, a French Frog was what popped into my head.. hehe).  ANYHOW… *ahem*

The kids responded well to him (well, my 3.5 and almost 6 year old, this was after I left my sister’s house)… actually trying to answer François’ questions in french and in learning to introduce themselves in french… but there were a few things I noticed:

1. If you make a body, it will flap and rustle when you operate the “mouth hinge”… kind of annoying, I might cut François down to his face only… not decided yet.

2. Paper quality COUNTS… seriously!  The kids made theirs with construction paper I bought for them to play with (read: not the most expensive kind) and within minutes we had small rips and tears.. (tears as in crying… and tears as in paper.. two birds, one rip.. sorry, stone! LOL!).  We reinforced the hand places with duct tape… which I love, but still, it does make things a little more complicated.  François was made with top quality construction paper.. quite pricey… but he is A LOT more solid and durable… The difference doesn’t show well in pictures, but believe me, it will make ALL the difference in your puppets.

3. Seeing as my sister has highspeed and I don’t… I decided to check out the site at her end to see if I got “more” from it there than I could here… I’m sorry to say that I wasn’t overly impressed with the qualities of the videos available (guess I wasn’t missing much after all! LOL!).  But I did find one audio/video (not sure if it was the video that had a problem or if it was designed to just be stills to background the audio file… it’s the Grade 5 Part 1 file… not only was the teacher enthusiastic, but gave some really great insights into how this could work in a classroom of older children.  And although there is a recommendation to “watch the kids” - I got nothing from that video, which was poorly shot and didn’t even have an audio track (on either of our computers). 

4. Jeffrey Peyton, the man who is behind this patented hinge, and who is featured in many of the videos and audios on the site, can be rather dry to listen to - which is unfortunate as he is quite knowledgeable and concerned with the eduction of children.  I know that he’s capable of more enthusiasm, as I heard a spark at the end of one of the audios encouraging us to EXAGERATE! *grin* 

5.  As for the website itself, I wish he’d spice it up a bit more, make some better videos… it would be SO easy to do, even just a burst of COLOUR would improve the site dramatically.  I also found the site a little less than user friendly in it’s layout, but I’m pretty picky, since being on dialup means searching more pages means a lot more time wasted.  However, as an educational resource, the site has a wealth of information that would best suited to a classroom teacher, but might not be as useful to a homeschooler.  I guess I shouldn’t predict that, though since every homeschool family is different. 

Wow… I sound like I’m complaining… but I’m not.  Really!  I did learn something about myself and my kids yesterday.. they do respond to puppets, and although I made François out of paper, I’m thinking a fabric puppet of a frog might serve me longer and better… so now I’m on the lookout for this.  I can’t see using this tool all too often, maybe as a literature aid… like having the kids make puppets of the main characters and being able to “play” the story over and over… but it would definately take me leading them in it… and I’m not sure I’m “that kind of Mom” - You know?

So, all that to say, if you are like me and are “creatively challenged”, www.puppetools.com might be just the place to spark you full of ideas, but at .. this isn’t much more than a paper bag puppet using construction paper as a base instead of a paper bag (which gives you a neater and less obvious base, as well as seems just a little “higher end” crafty than a paperbag as well - you know, for the older kids who are very “looks” oriented *grin*). 

However, I think if you are limited to discount materials, for something as flimsy as a paper puppet, I’d probably suggest you to just go to the dollar store, pick up a hundred paper bags for a buck and use that as  a base.  It’d be easier for small hands to do the sticking and glueing and is far more cost effective for me since I wouldn’t need to invest in the expensive construction paper.

And although the site has hundreds of “teacher submitted” images, “student submitted”, and even some printable templates -  I bet my frugally minded friends could google “PUPPET+CRAFTS” and get a million hits full of ideas FOR FREE… but if search engines aren’t your thing (just because I love them doesn’t mean everyone does… grin!) or you are interested in the “educational philosophy of puppets in the classroom” www.puppetools.com would be a great site to check out.  A one-year membership is only $20 US for individuals, or $99 a year for a group membership (like a school or a co-op). 

Blessings!

As a review blogger,  I am provided a free copy of the book, curriculum or product to test and use in order to write an honest review. I receive no other compensation and the opinions I share are my own and not influenced by the company in question.

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