The Artist in Residence is an opportunity to have Mrs. McPuppet bring a bundle of new ideas and energy into your school. The programs come in all shapes and sizes. They can focus on learning about puppets from around the world, learning how to move puppets, learning how to make puppets, and learning how to translate a folk tale, a legend, a famous person's life, or a even biology lesson. The final event could be a performance for another class and family and friends and both would include a display of the journals worked on by each student. The New York State Learning Standards for the arts are interwoven into the exciting activities that Mrs. McPuppet provides.

Primary Grades - Greene Elementary School
This recent residency was a wonderfully exciting opportunity to bring Mrs. McPuppet and her lessons about geography, animals, and values into several classrooms.  Drawing teachers in costume into the interactivity of the program adds much to the sense of fun and wonder for the children.  You may click on each picture below to see it full sized.

Fourth Grade -Glenwood School, Vestal, New York
This was a nice example of a four day residency which began with an introduction to different styles of puppets from around the world. Hand puppetry was taught and then applied to Iroquois legends. which the students were studying at the time. The residency was a collaboration between many teachers. The art teacher worked on finishing the puppets, adding costumes and props,  the librarian and the music teacher worked on the dramatization of the story with the voice, and the classroom teacher worked with the children on rewriting the legends in their own words. On the final day we practiced in the morning and in the afternoon the children performed for the first and second graders.


First and Second Grades- South Kortright Elementary School

This was a nice example of a 10 day residency for six classes which began with a dramatization by Mrs. McPuppet of a folktale with puppets, costumes, and song. The music teacher worked with the children before the residency so that they were acquainted with the songs. On the second day we looked at different styles of puppets from around the world and began making the puppet for the first folktale. Day three we finished the puppets and started to bring them to life with the story. Each new folktale was introduced with a mini- performance and the next day we would make a different style of puppet and act out the story with these new puppets, props, and costumes. The children read different versions of each folktale, discussed their differences after which they wrote their own variation of the story. We performed the stories in a final celebration for families and friends.
 

First Grades- South Kortright Elementary School
This is a nice example of a one day residency which began with a performance by Mrs. McPuppet involving many folktales and songs. One story was chosen from the performance and the children made puppets in one hour sessions to dramatize that story.