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In-Class Activities

Child Development: Puppetry and Emotion

Author: Sara Lindey, Ph.D.

Related Videos:
Mister Rogers:  Coping with Fear
Susan Linn: Death (PDF Transcript)
Josh Selig: Reflections (PDF Transcript)

Show the following video clips or have students find video clips online of different puppets from children’s television, films, theater, and other sources.  Discuss the particulars of each puppet video, including defining the puppet’s character, determining the topic of conversation, and analyzing how this play may affect children.

Mister Rogers:  Coping with Fear

Popsies: Happy and Sad: Two minimalistic hand puppets act out the meaning of “happy” and “sad” through a wordless 3-minute sequence designed for children ages birth to 4.

In the clip, “Susan Linn: Death,” from the Fred Rogers Oral History Project interviews, puppeteer Susan Linn, who is also the director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, talks with her puppet Audrey about Mister Rogers, implying that he used puppets in order to have conversations about important, often emotional, topics.

In the clip. “Josh Selig: Reflections,” from the Fred Rogers Oral History Project interviews, Josh Selig, founder of Little Airplane Productions which specializes in programming for preschool-age children, charts his entrance into a career in children’s television with an epiphany about the soulful qualities possible with puppets. 

Complementary Materials:
Linn, S. (1996). With an open hand: Puppetry on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” In M. Collins & M. Kimmel (Eds.) Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Children, television, and Fred Rogers (pp. 89-100). Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

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