"Puppet Play" project @ HSC Bensonhurst Senior Center.7 9/21/2021

 

HSC Bensonhurst Senior Center

Puppet Project

Blog 7 9/23/2021

Voicing a puppet seems easy, however, to do it effectively and not strain the neck we need to learn how to breathe, from the diaphragm. We had fun making animal sounds, discovering that the language you speak can affect the animal sound you make.

So Sim, our most senior student, in years only, certainly not in attitude or energy, has been busy crocheting little rabbis for her classmates for the Moon Festival. She has also given each rabbit some tiny carrots!! 

We practiced how to hold the puppet using our index finger in the head, and thumb and pinky in the arms. Basic head movements were learned such as nodding in agreement and shaking the head to say “no”. Next, we incorporated the hands with a thinking gesture, taking a bow and clapping and then types of movement such as walking, swaying, and jumping. Putting it all together, we added emotions such as scared, sad, angry, happy, and surprised. When spotlighted, each person performed with their animal puppet.

To change the finger puppet into a rod puppet, students tied a knot in one end of a rubber band which they looped over the button sewn into the middle of the puppet’s hand. Then they tied the other end of the rubber band around the rod and secured it in place with tape. They used the same process on the other hand and now had two rods with which to manipulate the puppet’s hands. A longer wooden dowel of wider diameter was inserted into the neck of the puppet and paper was taped around the dowel for it to fit snugly and hold the head in place. Students experimented with different ways of moving the puppet using the rods. 


It all starts with a circle! Using their sketchbooks, students divided a page in two and drew a circle in each section. After looking at reference images of how to use proportion to draw a human head, they drew a profile and front on view. Repetition is an effective way to solidify skills, so we drew another set of heads making them different from the previous. We look forward to them uploading photos of their work and sharing it with the class on WeChat.



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