Whilst I was writing the different educational curriculums for foreign language acquisition and in the writing of the Baguette Bear® books which are now award winning, I played heavily with props. (still do!)

Yes, you read right, ‘played’ was the keyword and it is one of the most valuable doorways you can possibly use to help improve a child’s learning.

As an adult and a teacher, you must train yourself to really see the world through the eyes of a child. If you cannot do this, you will always be ‘missing the link’ that helps you to build the teacher / student relationship you need to be able to really teach to your fullest ability.

This is one of the reasons, I believe that Baguette the Bilingual bear® is so successful and loved by children, parents and schools. His small, child like size and manner are replicated through a puppet. The Baguette Bear® puppet.

The puppet, the books, the music, songs and the stories are all built upon my many years of research working with children as an educator, teacher, as a former child protection professional, as an author and illustrator,  as a mother and as a once child myself and frequent child visitor  in my own creative world. To teach children successfully, you must always be able to revisit the child’s world as a child. It’s a total must! 

In fact, I will go as far to say that most definitely in the UK, one of the biggest failings sadly of the new changes in our public school structures to the now academies, is the associated swift and often preferred change that many teachers now all teach wearing business suits. They are equally, all too often  in meetings discussing budgets and expect a child to be seen and not heard. The world of successful education was not built on these values and I feel will not survive on them either. Remembering that learning is a life, long experience. Time will tell.

But one tool of teaching that has always stood the test of time is the puppet, if used well. By this I mean to use a puppet well, you simply have to live within it. Embody, in a sense the attributes of that puppet and the world to which it pertains.

This builds a rich context which creates the environment and expereince that you can then use as your classroom. Remembering at all times, that a key factor of that classroom is the student themselves. The student is a key mechanic within this learning experience. How they respond and react to the puppet and the actions of the puppet are your cue to deliver the next response.

This is why I love using puppets so much, we have taken a soft puppet which both the student and teacher looks at initially and then  with careful introduction by the teacher transforms the learning experience, second by second. Making the learning experience totally unique. This is priceless. Now if you teach with methods that do not allow a child, a student to be heard, you are not teaching. You are dictating. 

Think back to the times you have used any puppet, several times. How did you use it? What was the student’s response? I bet each time, every use was totally unique. And if you do after class evaluations, if you refer back to your notes, you will see that your observations for each use will be different and quite possibly would have thrown up new ideas of use for yourself as a teacher which hopefully you would have used to create even more engage lesson plans or lesson themes.

Now, think of the student, the child, how do you think they reacted? Did their response cause you to create a reaction that was different each time? Most probably yes. Every action causes a reaction. A science within a science – quite unique.

So, in a nutshell, a puppet is a vehicle for the complete revolution of learning, each time you use it. How wonderful is that. 

I want to highlight here the duality of learning also for both the student and the teacher. Every time I have taught a class with Baguette Bear®, I always thought of many more ideas of use and extension from any one given activity thus producing more and more unique learning opportunities. These thoughts if realised are golden nuggets of knowledge for both the teacher and the student. 

So, let’s look at some basic ways in which you can use any puppet in your lessons.