Day 166: puppets

I gave away the secret already but I hope you will stick around to hear about the BEST puppets that I have had the priveldge of working with so far.

I have mentioned bringing books to life with stuffed animals before (Day 56) but now I am so excited that we have puppets to use.  Three puppets to be exact although two of them the girls don't know about yet! The puppets all came from The Otter Side of Nature. I know this store (and Maggi!) because they are a faithful exhibitor at the WI Association for Environmental Education Fall Conference every year. I buy Christmas gifts from them every Fall.  My girls got puzzles and games from this store even before they were born! HA! They have an extensive nature related product list with puzzles, games, stamps, field guides, books, and a lot of other wooden toys but my favorite things that they carry are the puppets. I have just never seen such good quality, real looking, animal puppets at such reasonable prices. I bought two this past Fall at the conference. And then when I started this project of doing Christmas toy reviews I knew I wanted to do a review for their store.  They were generous enough to send me a puppet for me to review. 

So, now we have a turtle.

And all the limbs and head pull completely into the shell just like real turtles, which to me is awesome!

We have this adorable little squirrel! Since this is an animal that my girls both see in our yard I can't wait to use this with stories and pretend play. The features of this puppet (unlike many animal puppets that I have seen from other stores) are all proportional, in the correct ratio to what they would be on the real animal. Again, this is a detail that might not matter to a lot of people but to me if I am going to have animal puppets so that my girls are learn more about the animals I would prefer that they look like the actual animal!

And we have a little monkey. I am much less familiar with all the different species of monkeys so I can't speak to its biological correctness, but isn't it adorable?!

This one is not a Christmas gift so Sam has been able to play with it. She loves making it wave.

But it has also been climbing trees (the stair rails and furnture), running through the house, reading books (it seems to like Curious George!) and playing with all the other monkeys that we have in the house (from a little people set and a small wooden one from a noah's arc set!). We are also pairing the monkey with books about monkeys. 

If you have any interest in nature related gifts this Holiday season (or at any point in the future!) I would strongly recommend going through The Otter Side of Nature. And if you have a young one in your life that is interested in puppets or animals at all these are MUST HAVES!

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The Nitty Gritty!

One way that puppets can be a huge help in learning is bringing books to life.  Just like we turned some simple pretend play with a fort into a learning experience yesterday puppets can be used to increase the learning and retention that is involved with reading a story. 

Take for example the squirrel puppet. I found a book at the library that I plan on pairing with the squirrel puppet, once Sam opens it on Christmas morning. "Squirrels and their Nests" by Martha E. H. Rustad. This is a very simple non-fiction book about the life of squirrels. But if you have a squirrel puppet the story can be read from the first person perspective.  Suddenly it is as if you are looking at a photo album made by the squirrel and he/she is telling you the stories of their life. Kids are captivated by this method. And puppets, unlike regular stuffed animals, can make this more believeable and real for the child because the puppet can move and "talk" as if they are really telling the story. I have done this with preschoolers in programs before and it is amazing at what they can remember when a puppet is involved!

Please go check out The Otter Side of Nature and if you buy something let them know that Greening Sam and Avery sent you!

 

Comments

[gina]

Those are cute. We have an adorable hedgehog puppet that I need to unearth. Thanks for the reminder!!

[welcome to our wonderland]

we love these puppets our library use to have them available in a cloth bag, along with a book and lesson plans for check out but they stopped that :(