With finger puppets you can watch as your children start to learn quicker, focus for longer and gain control of their impulses earlier.

Here’s some tips for how to get the most out of your finger puppets.

Storytime.

Goal. Bring life into your stories and introduce your children to literature

Howzit done?

Try to choose books with only a small number of characters on the scene at any one time. Use the pictures in the book as scenery. Surprise your child when a character from his favorite story appears. When they strike up a dialogue with the character the story may well take off in entirely different directions.

See each of the collections for books that can be used with the finger puppets.

Finger Puppet Talk

Goal.To help your child express thoughts and feelings and to try out life situations. Sometimes kids find it hard to talk to adults.  When children talk through or to a puppet the barriers to communication come tumbling down! Is your Child stressed about a trip to the dentist? Use the Crocodile to tell him about his last trip to the dentist when he discovered that his dentist was actually a monkey and……..

Howzit done?

Choose a quiet space and try at first using a single finger puppet .Create a character that is gentle, easy going, an all round nice guy.

Treat the puppet as a living entity at all times. This will help build its credibility.

Use your puppet to ask questions that encourage your child to say how they’re feeling.

Make sure your puppets a good listener. The more he respects what your child is relating to him the more he’ll be trusted.

With your child controlling the puppet you can play out scenarios that relate feelings and actions. For example what does Sid the Gecko do when he’s sad?

 

Getting things done!

Goal. Are your demands falling on deaf ears? Are your kids sluggish to respond when you want them to tidy their room, get dressed etc.? A finger puppet can quickly put the fun back into daily routines.

Howzit done?

“Mr. Pukeko says it’s time to get dressed!” gets a much better response. Then “what do you think Mr. Pukeko is going to want us to do next?

Up until 8 years old children learn new rules 10 times faster from a puppet than from Mum and Dad. So “Mr. Pukeko says never play with matches” is very effective.

Long Journeys.

Just when the children are about to get cranky pull out a finger puppet or two and let the story telling commence