Puppetools® Basics
The Art of Playful Teaching and Learning: Using Play Language to Transform Communication with Children
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Puppetools® Basics is a work-of-art for educators and parents ('first teachers') that provides the initial steps to make the act of communication joyful and creative through play. If we agree that authentic teaching is an art, and that play is a universal language, then we've combined both art and play into a one-of-kind art-propelled communication pathway--a play language.
Our Children Love it!
I am sorry that I didn't have a course like this when I started teaching. I'll never teach without a puppet again.
Karen S., Second Gr.
Another colleague came in to introduce her puppet to my class. Again, the children got their puppets out to introduce theirs in return. The kids are loving every minute of this. This has been the most enjoyable first few weeks of school I can remember!
Marylin, Second Gr
The children have developed a very strong bond with her, which is spilling over to me. I am getting hugs from students who have had a very hard time showing any emotions. The children are also aware of the change in the atmosphere of the room. They are more relaxed and in tune to each other's needs. Their journals speak of tenderness- loving gentleness, shyness. They speak of caring and how they need her. I must admit I took this class to fulfill a one hour requirement. How very lucky I was to need that one hour.
Pat, Third Gr.
What's Included?
Puppetools® Basics prepares you to become a Playful Communication Practitioner, as you learn how to develop, organize and implement teaching strategies grounded in--and guided by--the science of play and communication. Every child is unique and so is every parent.
With Puppetools®--our universal language of Play-Based Learning and Communication, play becomes a guide that feeds the spirit and fosters the growth of all who share the journey.
Course Lessons
Meet the instructor
Jeffrey Peyton
As a youngster Jeffrey Peyton had a hard time in school, so hard he embarked on a 40-year pursuit of a vision that so many have often wished for but which few act on---that of transforming the learning culture.
Following a 2-year stint in the Army in 1970, Peyton began teaching high school English. While performing puppet theater, he became fascinated by the powerful response in children to puppets during the shows, and under consecutive grants from the New Haven Foundation, he conducted workshops for every school, putting the art of puppetry into the hands of every teacher.
Peyton soon patented a paper hinge device to simplify puppetry for teachers, and thus began a journey into play and communication that would take him into independent citizen science, brain science, engineering, play-based communication, play theory, and transformation— while at the same time developing tools and media that he would test and refine over the course of decades.
Jeff's vision: advance a way to bring play into classroom communication, and you would have the means to transform the learning culture. His invention of Play Language is a practical way to mainstream play into learning spaces at all learning levels. In 2004, Jeff was invited by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to present original papers on play to brain scientists. Peyton’s ‘play language’ has reached into classrooms around the world; his research is in the annals of Neuroscience. His project for advancing Play throughout the learning culture is Play Tectonics--”Moving Education Forward on the Power of Play”--is now the focus of his attention with a growing team of engineers, artists and scientists.
Patrick Jones - Course author
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