Puppets and Mascots provide an essential link between learning and play, which makes them an amazing teaching tool for at home, in a classroom, birthday parties and so on.
Learning through play is fundamental to any young childs development. Puppets and mascots help stimulate children’s imagination, encourage creative play, self esteem and help even the shyest child feel comfortable in the most stimulating and what can be intimidating environments. Puppets can help break down barriers and allow children to feel less threatened in new situations.
Learning With Puppets and Mascots
The beauty of using a puppet is the different characters and personalities that can come to life. We try to demonstrate different emotions children are likely to feel during a class. This helps children believe and relate to the character as well as learn life lessons. Sometimes use our puppets as teaching aids. We have our puppets demonstrate the skill of the day whether it is rolling or jumping and even show spotting techniques. The use of a puppet is both entertaining and captivating. It can help young children stay focused for longer. And we ALL know how short of an attention span the youngest ones have.
From finger puppets to puppets on a string, the options to choose from are endless. We at GymTools have designed our own puppet character that is not only friendly, colourful and inviting, but is soft and cuddly and safe for even the youngest tots.
Introducing Gym Twinkle: The Gymtastics GymTools Mascot
Our mascot we use at Gymtastics GymTools is named “Gym Twinkle” .
GymTwinkle is a lot more than the Gymtastics GymTools mascot. He’s 18” of flame resistant polar fleece stuffed with nylon batting, hopes, dreams, encouragement and exactly 1% unicorn mane, because that stuff is hard to come by. Make no mistake: there’s some magic inside of GymTwinkle. He’s a teaching aide hand puppet and a relatable friend for our pre-school students.
GymTwinkle participates in each pre-school class in meaningful ways. He reflects the children’s emotions throughout the session: he is shy on the first day of class and acts silly on funny hair-do day, etc. He is always ready to greet the children with hugs and a big smile, GymTwinkle represents our belief that every child is a star just for being who they are.
We encourage any pre-school instructor to incorporate any puppet/mascot into your class but if you would like your very own Gym Twinkle Puppet it can be ordered here.