Puppetools

It's no secret that learning through play is an important part of every child's education. There is a company called Puppetools that has this philosophy in mind. This website/service has the goal of teaching parents and teachers how to use puppets to foster learning through play. The service is a cost of $20 per year to individuals and $99 for a school or group.

The service provides templates for many puppets as well as providing training in how to use the puppets. While I think this a good idea in theory, I felt that paying for this service isn't necessary. Children are naturally creative using items around the house to make puppets and dolls. In this day in age where the internet is available many of these ideas can be found for free. The site made me feel like something as simple as puppets was more complicated that just having fun with it. This is something homeschoolers generally avoid.

One benefit I do see is having all of the templates in one place as well as ideas for using those puppets in a learning setting. This could be helpful to teachers and homeschoolers alike if puppets is a part of your curriculum. The templates were easy to print out and the site was fairly easy to use.

If this appeals to you, check out Puppetools and see what they have to offer you.I am giving this one a B- in my book.