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Login Create Account“Well, good day (insert student’s name here)! Would you like to take a tour of my gardens? They are really quite breathtaking. We could paint en plein air together today!” says Mr. Monet, the finger puppet.
Watch as students’ eyes widen with excitement and they start speaking directly to the puppet on your finger.
Looking for a way to capture your students’ attention when teaching about particular artists? Why not use puppets? I have always found great success in my art room – puppets are FUN!
They have different voices, they are whimsical, and they relate to play. Students love my artist puppets so much they actually cheer at the sight of them. While you can –and should – create your own puppets, you can also buy an Artist Finger Puppet starter pack to get you rolling and test the waters.
Note: Haring, Monet, Picasso, Klimt, Dali, Rodin, Homer, O’Keeffe as well as subjects of major works like Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Scream are sold separately and can be found on Ebay, Amazon, and in many museum shops. This is not a sponsored post. I simply love how these tiny puppets bring the artists to life for my students.
I have students with Autism that have never made eye contact with me and yet they smile and engage the puppets in conversations to no end! It works so well I’ve made several other teachers puppet versions of themselves. They confirmed the same results; information presented by the puppet is received and retained better than information presented by the teacher.
Whether you teach students with Autism or not, puppets will be a hit in the art room! And, if you’re looking to learn even more about working with students with Autism in the art room, be sure and check out AOE’s course, Autism and Art, where you’ll dive deep into the latest research and create tools to immediately use with your students.
Do you already use puppets in the art room? If so, how?
Do you have any concerns about using puppets for instruction?
Magazine articles and podcasts are opinions of professional education contributors and do not necessarily represent the position of the Art of Education University (AOEU) or its academic offerings. Contributors use terms in the way they are most often talked about in the scope of their educational experiences.