The Big Box

 

I brought a big box into the Kindergarten room and asked the students what they thought we could do with the box. Their suggestions were amazing and the problem solving that went on with one box was astonishing for me to experience. The final response was that the big box could be turned into a Puppet Theatre but it was boring the way it was. Some of the suggestions were: put stickers on it, put cloth on it, paste all kinds of things on it to make it prettier and finally someone suggested to paint the box pretty bright colours. Next we talked about their colour suggestions: pink, purple, red, blue.

The next part of the discussion was, How many children could be the puppeteer and fit into the box comfortably. The children thought two children and that chairs should be placed inside the box for them to sit on. So I placed a chair into the box and one child went into the box and sat. The child told us there was a huge problem because he could not move inside the box and his knees were touching the box and there would not be room for someone else in the box. The solution, two children would go into the box and sit on their knees or stand when they were the puppeteer.

Next it was decided there needed to be a curtain for the puppet theatre so people would know that when the curtain was open the show would be starting and when the curtain was closed there was no show or the show was over.

Finally another teacher and I, modelled appropriate puppet behaviour and volume of voice for the puppets.

So within the next two weeks the children will be busy decorating our puppet theatre. I have decided the morning class will develop a sign for the theatre and the afternoon class will have an opportunity to develop their own sign. We do have puppets because I purchased 4 different birds, 4 winter animals, 4 zoo animals and 4 sea creatures. This centre should be in operation by sometime in the middle of November.