Recreation Club students put on a puppet show for preschoolers at the Dillon Center.
Sounds of music and preschool giggles radiated from the all-purpose room in the Dillon Child Study Center Wednesday during a visit from members of SJC Brooklyn’s Recreation Club.
The club’s special fall artwork and music session — using kazoos and puppets — gave SJC students a chance to practice working with preschoolers on their physical, emotional, cognitive and listening skills in a fun and engaging way.
The best part of the session, according to the class of 3 and 4-year-olds, was the puppet show.
With an upbeat tune playing in the background, the College puppeteers danced authentic marionettes across the floor and in the middle of the children’s miniature tables. Throughout the performance, the young audience threw their arms in the air laughing and cheering as they watched the silly way puppets move when they dance.
“The kids looked like they enjoyed it,” said Karma Dolma, a senior therapeutic recreation major and president of the Recreation Club.
New Recreation Practices
The Recreation Club has put on puppet shows for Dillon Center students in the past, but Dolma explained this was the first time the group completed the fall artwork and music components with the preschoolers.
In addition to the puppet show, preschoolers learned how to create fall origami leaves and how to play the kazoo. Recreation Club Adviser Veronica Kaninska, M.S.Ed., C.T.R.S., explained that origami helps children’s eye-hand coordination, while the kazoo helps the tots learn how to control their breathing.
“It’s a way to release yourself and just have fun,” said Dr. Kaninska, a teaching instructor in the recreation and leisure studies department.
