Over a year ago, I brought in a homemade puppet theater made out of a foam tri-fold presentation board for our students to use during makerspace time. We also had homemade puppets (paper and popsicle sticks) and cheap ones from the dollar spot at Target. Puppets are perfect for elementary school library makerspaces because students are "creating" stories. These two pictures below are the old, homemade materials.
I quickly noticed how much students LOVED creating stories with the puppets! Almost every time the makerspace was open, the puppets were in use. This puppet center was used so much by our students, that the homemade theater began to fall apart. So, I decided to write a DonorsChoose grant to purchase real, sturdy materials. Thanks to our supporters, our project was funded in less than two months!
When the materials first arrived in early January, they were immediately added to our library makerspace center. As each class has had the opportunity to visit the makerspace, students eyes lit up when they saw the new puppet theater! The puppet/flannelboard center is now our most popular makerspace center because students are so excited to create stories with the puppets. Since receiving the materials, students have been busy re-creating popular fairy tales and traditional stories such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Students are also telling their own original stories. Since there are always multiple students using the materials at the same time, they are learning how to collaborate when telling the stories, which is an important skill to learn. Besides collaboration, students are also learning communication skills and retelling/storytelling skills that will hopefully transfer into other academic areas such as reading (comprehension) and writing.
In the coming months, our younger students will use the puppets and flannel board to practice retelling the books that we read aloud during library time. When students retell stories, they are learning comprehension skills, literary elements, vocabulary, and so much more. Using puppets to practice retelling is a very fun, engaging way to practice this skill. We could not do this without generous donations from the DonorsChoose community!
