Teacher Artist Partnership

Teacher-Artist Partnership in 2nd class

The students of 2nd class are currently taking part in the Teacher-Artist Partnership program with Artist in residence Carmel Balfe from Little Gem Puppets. The Teacher-Artist Partnership is a unique Department of Education and Skills initiative for supporting and enhancing arts in education in primary schools. Carmel is an experienced puppeteer, who has worked for Disney and Universal Studios and now runs her own puppet company in Kilkelly, Co. Mayo..

Carmel has been working with Ms McNamara, in advance of the program being delivered in the classroom. The students of 2nd class had the opportunity to participate in puppetry tutorials online and made their own wooden spoon puppets at home. They then used these puppets in a live online storytelling tutorial with Carmel.

‘In order to tell a story with your puppet you first have to bring your puppet to life.’ Over the next few months the students will have the opportunity to explore different methods and techniques used to do this. Now that we are back in the classroom, workshops will continue in person with the artist. They will work on silent movement with their puppet, working on how to use their voice with character and bringing the two together with lip syncing. The aim of this is to inspire confidence in bringing a puppet to life and create characters that are your own and fun to work with.