Puppets in education

You may be wondering why your child is using puppets at school in science lessons. The reason is that puppets have been shown to be helpful for science in many ways:

Puppets engage children in science and help to capture their attention.
Puppets get children talking more about science, and talking about science helps them to learn science better.
Puppets get children to think more and to use more reasoning in their science lessons.
Children say that they understand science better when puppets are used to explain some of the ideas.
Puppets are very motivating for children, so using puppets helps them to enjoy their science lessons more.
Puppets help to give children confidence, especially children who are shy and do not normally speak out in class

The PUPPETS: Talking Science - Engaging Science project supports teachers in using puppets in their classroom as part of their science teaching. It is based on research carried out in the PUPPETS Project. The research explored the use of puppets to engage and motivate children and promote conversations which help their learning in science. Puppets were used with primary school children to capture their interest, stimulate their thinking about science, challenge their ideas and model learning conversations.

Puppets for Teachers

Puppets in the classroom

If you are thinking about using puppets in your classroom then here is some simple guidance:

Keep the puppet’s head down - it needs to make eye contact
They don’t need a special voice or a distinctive accent
Left or right hand? - try both and see which suits you best
Speak slowly to give yourself thinking time
Think about your puppet’s character - how it will act and what it will say
It’s better when they have emotions and act in character
Your puppet needs to present a problem to the children for them to think about.

Puppets work especially well when they are involved in a story where they have a problem to solve. Children will want to help the puppets by solving the problem. At the end of the story the children can talk directly to the puppet about how they think they can solve the problem.