Puppet Week

We took a break from regular old boring school work this past week.  Instead, we focused on a unit study on puppets!  The puppet study is also fills requirements for IJ's Showman activity badge for Cub Scouts.  In history (social studies), we covered Punch and Judy, Edgar Bergman and Charlie McCarthy, Sheri Lewis and Lamb Chop, and Jim Henson and the Muppets.  No study would be complete without The Muppets!  We read biographies from the library, watched documentaries, You Tube videos, and Fraggle Rock.  We learned the Latin roots of the word ventriloquism and how the Ancient Greeks (and some other cultures) thought these "stomach voices" were from the other worlds.

For language arts, IJ wrote a script for his puppet show and each kid had to describe the story elements in three different episodes of Fraggle Rock.  E had to identify the beginning, middle, and end.  The boys had to describe main characters, plot, problems, events, and how the problem was solved.  Schools love to hear that students are using graphic organizers, so I made sure we used a few!

In science, we learned about light waves and shadows while experimenting with shadow puppets!  S especially had fun.  They started out making boring shapes, but then the boys started making ghosts and monsters and tried to scare F.  They succeeded.  I loved how IJ thought of using a hole punch and my scrapbooking scissors to add detail.  Other science lessons came from a documentary on how the Muppets were made and operated and what technology they used-like robotic hands to make the Doozers sing and how the puppeteers used monitors to see what their puppets looked like.

Art projects were making the puppets themselves.  IJ still needs to make a few more kinds of puppets for his Showman badge.  He's made a shadow puppet, a glove puppet, and a hand puppet.  Our next experiment will be a rod puppet.  E wants to make a marionette!  And the school district didn't think I could use all those art supplies I ordered.  Shows what they know!

M and I both grew up watching Sesame Street (obvious, isn't it? We're so smart!), so I brought home some Old School Sesame Street from the library.  Seriously, the DVD is called Old School.  At the beginning, there is a message on a computer cartoon that the show is for adult entertainment only (I started to panic-what Sesame Street did I get? Some awful spoof? Will my children see some awful behind the scenes with Bert and Ernie?) and that the content will not meet the educational needs of today's preschoolers (whew!).  At that point, the rolling typewriter cartoon character comes out and unplugs the computer.  Was it a joke?  Is there really a difference between the preschoolers of the 1960's and 1970's and today?  And who really depends on Sesame Street meeting the education needs of preschoolers anyway?  I thought Sesame Street was the babysitter, not the educator!