~Helene McGlauflin, School Guidance Counselor
Edgecomb School

Lesson One: Introducing the characters

I use two puppet characters regularly in my guidance lessons: Sharkie, who is a shark and Daisy, who is a dolphin. I began this lesson with Daisy and Sharkie saying they had other puppet friends in their class they wanted to introduce to the children. One by one, I put on and then introduced each puppet in the following way:

• Fred Frog, who has only one eye but can see well out of his other eye, can hop high and well and is good at catching flies, especially with his other eye.
• Emily the giraffe, who has a shorter neck than most giraffes but is a fast runner and can gather leaves from the shorter branches.
• Tim tiger, who is a tiny finger puppet and had a tiny voice. Although it is hard for him to roar loudly, he is good at hiding and catching small prey.
• Leo the lion, who is deaf is good at roaring (I do a very loud one!), signing with ASL, and being kind to friends.
• Bernadette bunny, who doesn't speak much, and when she does it is hard to understand her. She is a very fast hopper, can sniff out the best clovers and can wiggle her nose.

After the introduction, I say that all these puppets are in the same class and each one is different.

End of lesson.

Lesson Two: Everyone is different and can be friends

I start again with Daisy and Sharkie, this time with Sharkie saying he is not sure he can be friends with other animals because they are so different.(This is consistent with his personality and how I often use him--he is mixed up, unsure, or has a concern and the children help him) I then ask the children "Is this true?" to which they say "no" and I ask "is everyone in this class different?"

We then brainstorm ways we are different. At this grade level the responses were hair color, eyes, height, etc. I also asked if there were ways we were the same and brainstormed. The responses were similar; we are all children in kindergarten, have eyes, hands, feet, etc.

We then went back to Sharkie and each of the puppets from last week. One by one I put each on, reminded the children of who they were and we talked about what Sharkie could do or play with each. Sharkie found out he might be able to learn things from the puppets such as hopping, roaring, etc. and he could teach them to hunt.

End of lesson.

Lesson Three: We can help each other

I started by reminding the children of all the puppets, put each on and elicited responses from them about who the puppets were. I said, "Everyone needs help sometimes, depending on what they are good at or what is hard for them. What do you think Sharkie might need help with sometimes? Fred?" and on through all the puppets.

The children had lots of good ideas, and I put in the ones I wanted to stress, such as: "Leo the lion doesn't always know how loud he is roaring because he can't hear. We can help him by doing the sign for quiet or putting our hands on our ears to let him know", or,

"Bernadette Bunny sometimes needs to know we didn't understand her, so we can say kindly, 'excuse me' or 'I didn't understand what you said' and then be patient." I also added "It does not help Bernadette when people make fun of her way of talking, or imitate it--she needs help knowing a clear, appropriate way to talk" (I stressed this because we have an autistic boy who sometimes growls or makes other odd sounds. Other kids were imitating him sometimes).

I also tried to mention what each puppet was good at and wouldn't need help with too.

End of lesson.

I believe this last lesson has made a difference in the class. The teacher has mentioned that she mentions it regularly at appropriate times. I plan to bring the puppets back again in a month or so to "follow up"