More on dragonflies

Remember the residency I began in September, the one about lifecycles, butterflies, dragonflies, wetlands and puppets (whew!)? To refresh your memories, here's a picture of the fingerpuppets I designed for the 2nd graders (7 year olds) to make:

While I was in Brazil last month, these children went on field trips to the Baker Wetlands.

Yesterday and today, I met with them again. We talked about what we'd done on the first visit and what they remembered from the field trip. They were full of information and even a little bit of misinformation, as 7-year-olds so often are.

We practiced our zipping, zooming and hovering with the fingerpuppets and then we made up a couple of stories about dragonflies. From there, we shifted over to more about puppets, and how they often have exaggerated actions of the creatures they imitate. Trixie denied this, then sneezed her hat off her head dramatically. The baby puppet popped her binky out of her mouth ten times. We sang Poor little bug on the wall again, to reinforce the idea. At the end, we had questions about butterflies, dragonflies, wetlands and puppets. I reminded them of the question words, to forestall the kind of "my grandmother has a dog" statement.

Also this week, I began the shortened version of the residency with the 2nd graders who didn't get to go to the wetlands. They get one session with me. I have eight more schools to visit. Then all the students will go to a big puppet performance at the Lied Center at the end of the month. I'm planning to go, too. 

Dragonfly residency

Today was the second day of the residency with 2nd graders (7-8 year olds), with sessions at four schools. 

To begin with, Trixie thought we were going to do something with flying dragons--she reached into the puppet bag for a dragon marionette (one of the goals was to introduce the students to various kinds of puppets). It took a while to convince Trixie that we were going to talk about dragonflies, not flying dragons and not dragon's flies.

Even the school therapy dog got in on the residency today. She got some good pats while I was talking. 

I asked the kids what they knew about Monarch butterflies, because another goal was to underline what they already knew and to compare butterflies with dragonflies, in preparation for their trip to the Baker Wetlands.

The students knew quite a bit about butterflies. Some of them mentioned metamorphosis, some talked about how the males have black spots on their wings, others brought up the fact that they're poisonous to birds. They knew the stages of the lifecycle and what happens in the chrysalis. 

From there, I brought out two of my dragonfly fingerpuppets and showed the lifecycle (another key concept) from egg to nymph to adult. The kids had made their own puppets and so we all practiced zipping, zooming and hovering. Oh, and eating mosquitoes from our other hands.

We played with having our puppets nod and shake their heads. We played with different voices and the importance of keeping in character. 

I showed the spider glove puppet and we sang "Poor little bug on the wall" together with different emotions so they'd get the idea of conveying various moods with their puppets. 

The sessions were extremely participatory, with lots of questions and answers. I'll meet with the 2nd graders again in November, after they visit the Wetlands and before they go to the Mermaid Puppet Theatre show of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." More on that when it happens!

Dragonfly finger puppets

I spent a long time looking for dragonfly finger puppets to use in my upcoming residency for 2nd graders (age 7-8, for those of you outside the US). Folkmanis has one. I ordered this for myself, but I'm disappointed--the wings on each side are on top of each other and the eyes are too far apart. I tried a kirigami dragonfly pop-up card. It was pretty, but not what I needed.

Nothing for it. I was going to have to make one up myself. I started playing with a pipecleaner (now called chenille stems in the craft stores), wire-edged ribbon and beads. Here's what I came up with.


Here are a few of them in their, umm, wetland habitat (ignore that sofa in the background!)
One benefit of these finger puppets is that the kids can make them before I arrive for the first residency session. I was thrilled when the teachers offered to do that. Another benefit is that they're quite inexpensive to make--I bought supplies for about 175 of them for under $15.

Dragonflies

Back to work, everybody. Vacation is well and truly over. I'm in the process of figuring out how to make dragonfly fingerpuppets for a residency with second-graders. I find myself engaging in lots of research and development. This afternoon I spent a little time at the craft store, then stopped at the Baker Wetlands. This residency is in conjunction with a visit to the wetlands. These pictures were on the walkway.

Here's one:


Same one, close up:


And another:

Oops! It's gone!



One more:


When I've figured out the fingerpuppets, I'll post pictures. Back to the lab.