find *your* voice

i think i mentioned before that i have a little puppet that i use to do short conversation with the kids. my puppet is a pink rabbit named yippee skippy. yippee's voice is high pitched and he squeals and jumps around whenever kids speak or especially say the right answer.
awhile ago i was training a new nursery teacher and she liked that idea and wanted to incorporate it into her lessons. problem was, she has a much lower natural voice than i do and so it was really straining her voice to speak all high pitched.
then one day in her classroom i noticed a really cool looking dinosaur. i picked it up and was like "wow! this is a puppet!" her eyes lit up and she said "oh my god. this is the one!"
point here--i'm a pink bunny and she is not. she was trying to go with a character that was against her nature and she was hurting her voice and it wasn't that effective with the kids. so if you're going to use a puppet, try picking a puppet that goes with your personality. it will make things easier on you, and be more realistic to the kids.
Tags: esl preschool, puppets

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