Finger puppets as a tool to teach English for very young kids

Finger puppets to help you teach English for very youg kids

My kids simple love it and, like me, you can make it yourself without any extreme creativity. Just google it at the internet and you can find many different models you can copy.

What will you need: Time to try and throw away what is inappropriate and courage to continue trying. Don't give up!

Seriously speaking, what will you need: hot glue gun, scissors, fabric glue, instant glue, extra materials (plastic eyes, plastic mouths, nose, if you wish to give it professional appearance, if not, you can use your own creativity to creat)

What will you need: Felt (or fabric) of different colors for the body, paws, ears, belly... etc

What will you need: Felt (or fabric) of different colors for the body, paws, ears, belly... etc








If you want to leave stitches showing, you will need a needle and some sewing lines.
You will also need paint or markers to paint on the eyes or extra features of finger puppets. But you can buy eyes and just glue them.

The result: Felt animal finger puppets - left to right, top to down: butterfly, pig, frog, rabbit, tiger, giraffe, bee, lion

The result: Felt Animal finger puppets - left to right, top to down: bird, lady bug, cow, mouse, tiger, chicken, lion.

What can you teach using finger puppets?

Basically, whatever you have in mind!

- Music: Save your face. Kids imagine animals are singing, not you! So, some silly musics for kids can be presented easily this way ;-)

- Numbers: use the puppets to change your voice and pretend you are the animal speaking while you say the numbers and kids repeat. You can also ask students to count the number of animals you show them;
- Greetings and Farewells: use the animal to mime a pair greeting themselves while you say them and kids repeat. They can also mime the voice of animals;
- Days of the week: pretend the animals are saying them and make kids repeat. You can also add easy sentences so that kids can learn easily: I like Monday, I like Tuesday, My favorite is Sunday, My favorite is Friday etc...
- Months of the year: Proceed like you did with week days;
- Likes and dislikes:  Teach kids "I like" and "I don't like" and the name of animals;
- Grammar: singular and plural (one cat, two cats; one frog, two frogs); grammar in context of stories;
- Vocabulary: colors of the animals presented; 
- Vocabulary: name of the animals (or other names) presented;

Parrot, octopus, cat, elephant, hippo

Spider

Bird, bee, mouse

Frog

Butterfly

 Alligator / crocodile ; duck, chicken, hippo, cat.

• Those presented above are just ideas I had while working with animal finger puppets. I am doing like this and it is working with my students. Maybe with yours it works too :-)
•  
• Final tip:  Kids will want to handle the puppets.
•  If you don't allow, it will function as flashcards do and probably kids will lose the interest for the activity as they lose for flashcards as well. So, if this is your intention, better use flashcards, that are much easier to make and cheaper to buy.
• If you decided to let kids handle puppets, be prepared! They will destroy in minutes your cute finger puppets that took you hours of preparation. But certainly soon after being highly motivated... So, it pays the effort.

Moldes, modelos para inspiração e instruções de como fazer seus dedoches:  

http://www.freekidcrafts.com/finger-puppets.html

http://www.billybear4kids.com/FingerPuppets/MakeEm.shtml

http://www.etsy.com/shop/cherylasmith - the best I found with different models and pictures of final artcraft.