Teachers.Net Lesson Plans

#6. A Character Education Puppet Show in Three Skits

other, level: elementary
Posted by Margene Versace (mailto:mversace@umd5.umd.edu).
Stage Hand Puppets' On-Line Puppet Theatre
Deerfield Elementary School, US
Materials Required: refrigerator box, puppets, script or paper and pencil
Activity Time: Project completed over several weeks
Concepts Taught: Character Education

I am a schoolwide enrichment teacher at two public elementary schools in Harford County, Maryland. As an enrichment activity that also coincided with our Character Education program, a group of second graders decided to write a puppet show in three skits that would help other children understand more clearly concepts of honesty, loyalty, respect, responsibility .

Our guidance counselor, Arnell Lingenfelter, and I collaborated on the project. The children used a refrigerator box as their theater, wrote the scripts themselves, chose puppet characters, practiced with voice and intonation, drew scenery and made props. They decided to tape their voices on a cassette recorder (except for the narrator who would push "play" at the appropriate times) thereby eliminating the handling of scripts during the performance or the forgetting of lines due to stage fright.

They performed the puppet show as a schoolwide assembly, during an evening PTA meeting, and as an assembly at my other school. It was a huge success and we subsequently submitted it to the Stage Hand Puppet Theater website for publication. The children were so excited to see their work on the web! Please visit and use if you wish:

http://fox.nstn.ca/~puppets/activity/plays/skits.html