Professional Development Workshops
Puppets with a Purpose (Grades K-5)
Infuse your classroom with colorful puppet characters! A variety of easy-to-make, simple puppets come to life with voice and movement in this workshop. Every puppet is designed to help with specific curriculum topics, life skills (behavior management, hygiene, safety, etc.), or academic awareness (letter recognition, colors, numbers, etc.). Participants will make a set of puppets to take back to the classroom.
Bringing Biographies to Life Through Puppetry (Grades K-5)
Click here to visit the Gallery of Faces
This workshop was developed in association with The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and is listed in their brochure of touring programs.
Take your students back in time to meet three American patriots—through the use of puppetry. In this workshop, participants receive a hand puppet and 3 computer generated faces of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Teachers will learn puppet performance techniques as well as 3 unique activities that will bring your puppets to life in the classroom.
*You can substitute Washington, Lincoln, and King with any 3 characters of your choice.
Let Your Voices be Heard: Using Puppets to Bring Stories to Life (Grades Pre-K-5)
“Once upon a time…” Every child loves the beginning of a new story. Using puppets to tell a story creates an enhanced sensory experience in which the story actually comes to life before a child’s eyes. The character’s voices, movement and engaging visual presence will capture the attention of even the most demanding child. We all have many voices within ourselves. Let your voices be heard as you use puppetry to bring books to life! This workshop will help you develop skills needed to become a puppeteer and storyteller and capture a child’s imagination in the creative world of enchantment. Emphasis on vocal expression will be an asset in the classroom, whether used in conjunction with puppets or simply when reading aloud. Includes handout.
Goal: To assist participants discover and develop their voices to promote emergent literacy and listening skills through the effective use of puppetry in the classroom.
Mother Goose… On The Loose!
Kathleen Lynam, Nashville Wolf Trap Artist
Mother Goose nursery rhymes come alive and serve as learning catalysts as they are explored through puppetry, song, movement, dramatic play, and props. Nursery rhymes provide easy and developmentally appropriate connections to curriculum strands and outcomes, emergent literacy skills, such as recall and sequencing, rhyming, phonemic awareness, making predictions, as well as extending other developmental domains such as cognitive, social/emotional, and motor skills. Includes handout.
Goal: To enhance the development of children’s imagination and representational thought and to explore simple puppet making skills and techniques that can be easily used in the classroom.
*For booking contact: The Wolf Trap Foundation, Vienna, VA.
Recent Workshops:
Jan. 5, 2010 Professional Dev. For Teachers, Mayfield Elementary, Cleveland, TN
Jan. 28, 2010 9:30-11:30 “Documented Student Learning” TPAC at “The Learning Lab”
Feb. 26, 2010 Parent Workshop, Rawls Byrd, Williamsburg, VA
April 4-7, 2010 Professional Dev. For Teachers, Hong Kong, China
April 30, 2010 Family Workshop, Boston Children’s Museum, Boston, MA
May 8, 2010 Professional Dev. For Teachers, Minot, North Dakota
Aug. 16, 2010 Professional Dev. For Teachers, Mid-Cumberland Head Start, Lebanon, TN
