These are some of the photographs taken during workshops for primary school teachers and early years practitioners. The majority of these puppets were created in less than half an hour by the workshop attendees and show the diversity of characters that can be created in a short space of time from cheap and easily obtainable materials. Click on each of the thumbnail pictures in order to open them and view them in a larger format.

"I really enjoyed being made aware of how simple puppets can be and that inexpensive items can be put to effective use to make a most dramatic effect. Truly enlightening, thank you".  Primary Language Teacher Worksop Notts

"Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will amaze you with their ingenuity." 
George S. Patton (1885-1945) American General.

We then moved into the main body of the evening, and were fortunate to welcome Chris Foster from Lincoln Puppet Theatre. Chris brought with him a mass of resources and materials to explain how to make simple and effective puppets for use by both teachers and pupils. He talked us through how to use puppets to demonstrate facial expresssions, thereby enhancing communication and engagement with the language produced. The range of ideas he presented on how to make puppets was astounding, with simple, cheap and readily available materials. We were then treated to a hands-on session: we were given 20 minutes to select materials, design and create a puppet to take away for use in our own classrooms. We all commented that this made us think more carefully about issues for young learners when asked to tackle a new task, and our range of puppets at the end of the session was fantastic, with many of them engaging in spontaneous target language work with each other! Many thanks to Chris for an inspirational session. NACELL Regional Organiser.