Children love to play with puppets and to imagine fanciful stories. Not only is this kind of symbolic representation important in the development of human creativity and imagination, it also forms the foundation for future abstract thinking. This puppet theatre and drama class will help young children build a symbolic/mental representation of their environment and their world, progressing from storybook fables, to Puppet Theatre and then Dramatic Arts. The students will bring the characters they read about in storybooks to life through puppets, and then by becoming the actor or actress of their own story.