Catamount Arts

For early childhood educators

Friday, May 9, 5-7pm

Catamount Arts Center, 115 Eastern Avenue, St. Johnsbury

FREE but registration required

This workshop is for parents and caregivers attending with their young children. Please complete an enrollment form for the primary adult only. 

In this fun, hands-on whirlwind of a creative workshop, professional puppeteer and puppet maker Barbara Paulson will share tips from the trade to help educators craft several puppet styles out of a variety of easily sourced art materials. Puppets are fun and easy for early learners to create and use. We’ll explore puppet manipulation, the art of bringing these puppets to life for your audience, with fun and interactive games that can travel to your classroom and will be sure to engage student interest as they discover the language of puppetry.

Learning objectives: 

Participants will learn to build on the bond created between maker and puppet to develop self awareness as puppeteers plumb their own emotions, behaviors, and motivations while bringing their puppets to life.

Participants will explore the language of puppetry as an alternative means for students to express themselves.

Early childhood educators will earn professional development credit for attending this workshop. 

For more than 25 years, Barbara Paulson has had the great fortune to live the transient and transformative life of a puppeteer. Schooled on the road and mentored by professionals, Paulson is a founding member of Vermont’s No Strings Marionette Company. She has created, produced and directed countless professional and student productions, with the intent of connecting people to themselves and one another through story. Barbara shares her passion for puppetry as a teaching artist, encouraging students from 3 to 93 to fearlessly examine the cycle of creation and revision as they make meaningful connections to original and inspired work. Bachelor of Science degrees in Art and Zoology ingrained foundational tools that launch Barbara’s brain into the non stop creative processes of puppetry.