We are Carolina and Miguel Ángel and as you know, last week was the Medieval Market in Alcalá de Henares. We love these days since Alcalá, for people who don’t know the city, dressed up to commemorate the baptism of Cervantes. We recommend you to visit it next year because there is a very friendly atmosphere and it is possible to learn many things about long time ago. In this market, you can find different handmade stands, animals such as predatory birds, donkeys or horses, troubadours or many different spectacles set in those times.

Making the most of the occasion, we would like to show you an interesting material we found there.  There was a stand in which we realized there were a huge variety of puppets, all of them inspired in fantastic and real animals. But, what is our point of view of this material? Obviously, they can be used as a didactic source.

As all of you know, some weeks ago, we have talked about storytelling and how to do it successfully. These puppets can help us to carry it out and it is a fun resource for children.

These handcrafted animals do not cost a lot of money, however, we can make them in our own so they are even cheaper and have a personalized design. As we know, on the internet there are a lot of interesting webpages to make materials guided with really good scaffolding. So, why aren’t we creative and drive an initiative for our classrooms as teachers?

If you are interest on this, we were talking with the clerk and he explained to us how to do it by ourselves. Firstly and of course, we need the materials: they are made with foam rubber, a glove and paint cans or sprays. Then, the most important element they require is: CREATIVITY.

Finally, as we are imagination engineers, we can use this beautiful material as inspiration to create innovative ones, and after that, to use them not just in storytelling, but performances to develop different multiple intelligences, language skills, teamwork and cooperation, or every activity you imagine.

We hope you like it! Thank you