Since we have moved to a more electronic society, we often forget about a good old-fashioned puppet show! What is the benefit of pretend play using puppets? It can engage and encourage your child to use their imagination to “talk” to you! Whether homemade or store bought, you can teach your child to explore their voice and imitate words while making their puppets talk! Get creative and you can model words you would like to hear your child use to express themselves during everyday routines. For example, if your child is struggling to ask for the food or drink they want, you can use a puppet to model “Milk please”. Then pretend to give the puppet a cup of milk since they “asked”. Using puppets is also a great way to show them turn taking and making choices. Use the puppets to create scenarios that may happen in your daily activities to model language and behaviors you want to see your child utilize. In addition, they may notice that the puppets mouth is moving while they are “using words”(if it is a puppet made that your hands make their mouths move)and be more motivated to use their own mouths! Let’s bring back the imagination and creativity of puppet shows😊 You might be surprised how many words they will begin to use!
**Provide choices so they can learn names of the puppets, model sounds if you use animal puppets, take turns and show them how to share with the puppets, model words to make the puppets “talk”, use your imagination so they are building their own**