Making Puppets

At the SCCOE Ed Tech Innovation Summit last week I had the pleasure of meeting Sam Patterson. He is a Makerspace Teacher and is passionate about teaching with puppets. Sam brought some of his favorite puppets and helped us make our own. We used leftover fabric, recycled cardboard, and duct tape for the body. Sam helped us sew the seams and hot glue the mouth. We then selected ping ping balls, pom poms, spoon tops, googly eyes, or buttons for the eyes. 
Sam shared that he has his students use the design thinking process to create their puppets. His students then use them to act out scenes from books, teach vocabulary words, and to write plays. I've also found that students are also more willing to take a risk performing in front of an audience when they have a "puppet" doing the talking. Sam also shared some of the exciting work that he had been doing with robotics in the primary grades!

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