Puppets

My kids have had awesome teachers so far, especially Carson. One of his favorite teachers is Mrs. Weber, who taught his 2nd grade class. Unfortunately for Elise, Carson was in Mrs. Weber's last class as she retired. Elise would have LOVED Mrs. Weber as well. She is so creative and had the kids (even the boys) doing all kinds of neat craft projects to emphasize the curriculum. One of her creative strenghs is puppetry and she now teaches a graduate level class for teachers on puppetry in the classroom.

Lukily, that causes me to run into Mrs. Weber quite often in the summer as the class is usually right down the hall from my office. This year, she knew Carson was in a science camp on campus the same dates as her class. She encouraged me to bring the kids by on the morning of her last class to see the puppets made by the students (current teachers).

She also asked me if I'd bring the puppet that Carson had made in 2nd grade so she could show her students how she had incorporated it into a lesson...each 2nd grader picked a different animal and spent several weeks writing a detailed report and booklet, which culiminated in making a puppet of the animal they'd been studying...23 different animals. (Fortunately, I was able to locate it pretty easily...phew!)

Here are Carson & Elise with Mrs. Weber. Carson is holding the turtle puppet he made in her 2nd grade class. Elise is holding a Moose puppet that someone in the graduate class had made to go along with the book "If you give a moose a muffin." (She didn't want to let go!)

I had no idea what to expect, but these puppets were amazing. In many cases, they re-purposed stuffed animals. I love this idea!

Here is a re-purposed Clifford stuff animal, now serving as a puppet to accompany his many books!

Here is a stick puppet to go with another book.

I just love the idea of re-using stuffed animals in this fun way! What an awesome (and inexpensive) teacher's gift...a book along with a matching puppet!

(I took careful mental notes of how they did this and I'm going to give it a try...plus I know where to track down Mrs. Weber if I get stuck!)