Hobey Ford’s Golden Rod Puppets: Telling Folktales with Shadow Puppets

When teaching children about different cultures we frequently turn to folktales. These stories can illuminate many facets of a people and their culture. Story activates our imagination, draws us in, and opens the doors of learning. Often we learn best that which we can hold in our hands. Telling folktales with puppetry allows us to hold the story in our imagination and our hands at the same time. Puppetry taps many different types of intelligences and is therefore an excellent communicating tool. Puppetry can communicate and break down barriers where other means fail. Learning disabilities are often bridged through the use of puppetry. Puppetry can be integrated into many learning situations. It can be used to tell a story, teach through humor, illustrate an abstract concept, or express an emotion that cannot be done through spoken language. Puppetry is also fun. When students create puppet shows of a folktale they can incorporate aspects of that culture’s dialect, music, scenery, landscape and climate. In this process children can deepen their understanding of a people’s historic cultural background.

Why Shadow Puppetry?
Shadow puppetry is one of the most accessible, “doable” forms of puppetry. The materials, techniques, and presentation are so basic that they can easily be grasped and integrated into the classroom repertoire of learning tools. Unlike other forms of puppetry, which require elaborate stages, materials, and skills to perform, shadow puppetry puts the power of puppetry in the hands of teachers and students alike.

Objectives

Teachers will know:

• How to adapt a folktale into a shadow play.
• Various techniques for creating and manipulating shadow puppets.

Teachers will be able to:

• Guide students in a simplified process to adapt folktales into shadow plays.
• Guide students in creating their own shadow puppets.
• Guide students to perform their own shadow plays.

Teachers will appreciate:

• How shadow puppetry helps to build cultural understanding.
• How the process of creating a shadow play deepens student understanding of folktales.

There is no cost, but registration is required.

Check out the related APPlause! series performance, April 12-23, Hobey Ford’s Golden Rod Puppets: The Rainbow Bridge and Other Tales

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