Throughout history cattle have been domesticated and have provided for many of the needs of people.

1. Let a cow puppet use charts to tell about the various breeds.

Beef - Herford, Shorthorn, Aberdeen-Angus, Santa Gertrudis, Brahman or Zebu, Charolaise, Charbray, Galloway, Highland, Devon and Afrikander

Dairy - Holstein-Fresian, Jersey, Guernsey, Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Dutch Belted, French Canadian, Kerry, Dexter, Red Sindhi and Red Polls

2. Charts can also be used by a puppet to develop other vocabulary words related to the topic.

Actions - chewing cud and lowing or mooing

Body Parts - hide, cloven hoofs, tail, switch, horns, barrel, udder or bag with teats

Stomach - four parts - rumen or paunch, reticulum, omasum and abomasum

Buildings and places - barn, milk house, pen, pasture, cowyard, and stockyard

Diseases - anthrax, blackleg, bloat, brucellosis or Bang's Disease, cowpox, and foot-and-mouth disease

Food - grass, hay, grain, molasses, milk and water

People - farmer and family, veterinarian, feed store operator, cowboy, cowhand, cowherd, cowman, cowpoke, cowpuncher, and hired help

Pests - cattle tick and heel flies

Products and Uses - meat such as beef, veal, liver, brain, tongue, heart, kidney, sweetbread from pancreas and thymus glands, and tripe.

hide for leather

medicine

soap from tallow

glue

milk, parts of milk, and milk products such cream, skim, lactose, butter and cheese

power for work

Tools - cowbell, stanchion, drinking cup, milking machine, and milk stool

Types and relational names - cow, bull, steer, ox, heifer, calf, sire, dam, registered, fresh cow, dry cow, feeder, finisher, dehorned or polled, ruminant, and herd.

3. Time lines can be used by the puppet to develop concepts related to the history of cattle and the life story of an individual animal.

4. Have a puppet tell relational stories. Use words from the vocabulary listed to develop the ideas.

5. Find figures of speech, familiar sayings, or descriptive phrases, or words that refer to cattle. Let puppets use some in skits while the audience tries to identify the phrases from a prepared list. Examples could include some of the following.

The person is a bully.

Bull in a China closet

Shoot the bull

Bull market

Bull through

A cow

Cowcatcher

Cowlick

Kill the fatted calf

6. Use the puppet with poems, stories, music, plays and art work about cows.

Briggs, H. (1967). Cattle. In The World Book Encyclopedia: Vol. 3 (pp. 230-240). Chicago: Field Enterprises Educational Corporation.