Luckily, my mother saved many of my puppets as well as one of my old puppet stages. So this week's "Let's Pretend" class was Puppet Day!

We started off with an arts-and-crafts project. I gave each kid a picture of an animal that they could color. They had several animals to chose from: a pig, a bear, a hippo, a dog, a rabbit, a lion, and an elephant. When they were finished coloring, I cut out the pictures and taped them onto paper lunch bags. And they had a homemade puppet of their very own!

While I was cutting and taping, I let the kids have fun and stay busy with the big basket of puppets I had brought from home.

My first class - the one with all of the boys - is usually my most difficult group to deal with. They usually have less focus and are easily distracted. But they were wonderful with the puppets. They created characters and scenarios and kept themselves occupied and engaged until we ran out of time.

However, my second class - usually my more focused group - couldn't keep themselves occupied with the puppets. Although they were interested in playacting, they weren't interested in playacting with the puppets. To get them focused, I eventually sat them down in front of the puppet stage and performed a puppet show for them myself.

Sitting on the ground "backstage," surrounded by a cast of puppets, I improvised a story about Florabunda the Flower who is kidnapped by the Evil Dragon. When Florabunda's friend, Frances the Mouse discovers her missing, he hires the canine sleuth Sherlock Bones to help find her. Sherlock seeks clues from various other characters until, at last, he finds Florabunda and reunites her with Frances!

The girls sat and watched my improvised puppet show and seemed to be inspired by it. When I once again set them the task of playacting with the puppets, they took to the activity with renewed interest.

As a child, puppets were an outlet for my creativity and dramatics. As an instructor, puppets once again came to my rescue as a source for inspiration and entertainment.