the clip sheet: storytelling made easy with puppets

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The Clip Sheet: Storytelling Made Easy with Puppets Author(s): Kathleen Naylor Source: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Dec., 1985), pp. 381-382 Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20199101 . Accessed: 25/06/2014 02:49 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . Wiley and International Reading Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Reading Teacher. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 185.44.79.160 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:49:28 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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The Clip Sheet: Storytelling Made Easy with PuppetsAuthor(s): Kathleen NaylorSource: The Reading Teacher, Vol. 39, No. 3 (Dec., 1985), pp. 381-382Published by: Wiley on behalf of the International Reading AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20199101 .

Accessed: 25/06/2014 02:49

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Wiley and International Reading Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extendaccess to The Reading Teacher.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.160 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:49:28 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Send review copies of books and materials for The

Clip Sheet" directly to Dr. Kathleen Naylor, Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, 15444 Regalado Street, Hacienda Heights, California 91745, USA.

Storytelling made easy with puppets

Kathleen Naylor, Hacienda La Puente Unified School District, California

Storytelling is a rich tradition. Some of our greatest literature came down from

generation to generation by oral interpretation. In many classrooms and li

braries this oral tradition is still an element in the literature program. The three books reviewed here offer ideas to make storytelling more appealing. For less than US$50 a school library can have these exciting new resources available for teachers so that the tradition of storytelling can be enhanced with puppets.

Poems and holidays In Fingerpupp et s, Fingerplays and Holidays, Betty Keefe provides the how-to for correlating holidays with poetry and puppets. Along with the original po ems, O'Keefe includes a bibliography of children's books for each of 12 holi

days. Detailed guidelines provide information about the holidays as well as

puppet instructions-each chapter's illustrations and photographs help pre schoolers through third graders make puppets.

The 12 holidays include well known ones such as Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine's Day along with some unusual ones like Teddy Bear Day, National

Pig Day, American Indian Day, and Chinese New Year. Ideas are not limited to the holidays highlighted in the book. The sections

titled Holiday Resources and Book Sharing Resources allow teachers and librar ians to build from this one topic. Spiral bound and costing US$13.95, this valu able how-to book is published by Special Literature Press (P.O. Box 4397, Benson Station, Omaha, Nebraska 68104, USA, 1984).

Designing a full show

Puppetry does not have to be threatening. If a teacher needs more ideas, Nancy Renfro has made them available in Puppet Shows Made Easy (Nancy Renfro

Studios, 1117 W. 9th Street, Austin, Texas 78703, USA, 1984). For US$9.95

The CLASSROOM Reading Teacher 381

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.160 on Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:49:28 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

teachers and the amateur puppeteer can have a guide filled with shortcuts and clever ideas for developing scripts, puppets, sets and special effects, as well as for rehearsing and performing the show. The materials are appropriate for

grades three through nine.

Puppet Shows Made Easy can be a wonderful handbook for the middleschool student who is interested in the theater, and younger students can build a puppet show with little assistance from the teacher. The reader is guided from selecting the story through writing the script, designing and making the puppets and

scenery, to publicizing the show. It is truly amazing how an egg carton, cereal

box, and paper plate can become a puppet.

Storytelling with follow up Now that you know how to proceed from story to production, the third resource book will give you extra polish. Storytelling with Puppets is a complete guide to the art of storytelling through puppetry, and in it Connie Champlin and Nancy

Renfro combine traditional contemporary stories with a variety of puppet forms. Teachers and librarians can use their imaginations in storytelling along with the

practical information of story adaptation, puppet construction, and student par ticipation techniques outlined.

An important section of the book is Part Six where the authors have taken care to provide ideas for follow up. Storytelling is entertaining, but what happens after the story can be the substance of the activity.

The softcover edition of Storytelling with Puppets costs US$19.95 and is

published by the American Library Association (50 East Huron Street, Chi

cago, Illinois 60611, USA, 1985).

Young children and computers

"Microcomputers do not belong in early childhood classrooms serving 3-to-6

year-old children," says Sydney Schwartz, an early childhood researcher at

Queens College, Flushing, New York. Using computers with such young chil

dren is not cost effective, she says, because effective computer teaching for

this group requires one teacher for every five children.

Schwartz's study of 22 children found that "some 5 year olds can thrive as

computer learners," but only under special conditions not usually found in to

day's schools. Only half showed more than a passing interest in the computer. The children who were best able to use the computer were those who could

read. The report appears in the Spring 1985 issue of Issues for Educators,

published by Queens College School of Education.

Schwartz offers seven recommendations for working with children who have

high computer potential. Give them choices to use the computer or other ap

propriate early childhood materials. Let them use the computer alone, free of

demands to share. Make a variety of computer activities available. Provide at

least two computers for simultaneous interaction between children on com

puters. Make a printer available for hard copies of children's work. Supervision should be by a knowledgeable computer user who understands how young children learn. The maximum teacher-child ratio should be one teacher to

every five children.

382 The Reading Teacher December 1985

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