Discussion task #3: Building puppets with students for a specific purpose

Discussion task #3: Building puppets with students for a specific purpose

Please watch the Funtastic world of puppets video and choose one puppet your students can build and use during the English classes. Then design a guided activity that your students will use their puppets for a specific purpose. They could use their puppets to practice a dialogue, read, review, etc. Please share your puppet choice and your activity with the group.

I find it amazing that, in my head, creating puppets was so hard and after showing the video, how wrong I was! Creating them can be so simple and it doesn't demand too many resources, just creativity. And as a result, here's my activity:

I tell students they are in Potato city now. I ask them about a different name if they want to (e.g. Potatoville, potatoland, etc) and make potatoes doing different activities (e.g. playing soccer, watching TV, using a cell phone). I ask students to name them as they like it. Then, I say a Potasteroid crashes into Potato city. I ask students what were the potatoes doing when the asteroid crashed. I board their contributions and check pronunciation and form. After Ss.' contribution proves to have no major issues to address, I let them experiment with the potatoes, by asking them to choose an action to do in Potatoville when a tsunami strikes the city/earthquake/etc. I represent all natural disasters with them for an extra bit of fun. After the incidents, students have to guess what each other's potato was doing. I monitor and help students whenever needed.

Target language/skills: Speaking. grammar (past continuous), vocabulary (daily activities - natural disasters).

Cons: I wouldn't use this activity as it is in places where natural disasters occur and cause real damage to students and their families. I would stick to the Potasteroid instead, since the main focus is activities and past continuous.

Comments

  1. Carolina Brenes BurgosMay 5, 2016 at 7:18 AM

    I like this idea. Like you I thought puppets were very challenging and I was scared to venture into the world of puppets. Now, after seeing the video of the googly eyes, I'm excited to make puppets out of everything! Your potatoes idea is really nice!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Renata TodorovskaMay 5, 2016 at 9:58 PM

    A very nice idea for teaching / revising past cont tense. I like it so much!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Juan UribeMay 9, 2016 at 2:14 PM

    Hey Thiago!

    Great that you have enjoyed potato puppets! And as you have mentioned they are very easy to make. So many different types and possibilities for us teachers to promote playful and memorable learning.

    Loved your activity to use present and past continous. They will certainly have a lot of fun seeing what others have come up with!

    Hugs,

    Juan

    ReplyDelete

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