You Can't Lip Read a Puppet

No matter how hard you try. No matter how hard you concentrate. You can't lip read a puppet.

That's the truth.

My first graders watched a puppet show about bullying today. They laughed and giggled and yelled, "STOP! I don't like that!" Their smiles and laughter were unrestrained and enthusiastic. To say they enjoyed the show would be an understatement. They drank it in. It was intoxicating.

But I discovered that puppets are poor subjects for lip reading. To my weary, hard-of-hearing ears, the voices of the puppeteers were not only muffled, they were pretty near impossible to comprehend at all through the backdrop of children's laughter, the puppet stage, and the black hoods the puppeteers wore to hide themselves while they acted in their puppet persona. You can't lip read a puppet. It's impossible. They don't have lips.

So I chose to watch my students instead. What joy it must be to be 6. And to hear. And to watch a puppet show.