African Folktales Puppet Project

During the 2014-2015 school year, Salem Hyde received a grant from the Syracuse City School District Educational Foundation for the African Folktales Puppet Project. This interdisciplinary project connected ELA with the Visual Arts.

Fifth grade students read traditional African folktales in the library with Ms. Oliver. The folktales they chose were, Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock, Anansi and the Talking Melon, Anansi and the Lizard, Anansi the Spider, Anansi Goes Fishing and The Girl Who Spun Gold. The students then wrote the stories as puppet plays, choosing the characters they wanted to create and writing scripts.

Mr. Foster worked with the students in art to create rod puppets of the characters the children had chosen. A rod puppet is controlled by wooden rods that turn the head and the body. The heads were made of foil, acrylic paint and plaster gauze and the bodies were made of fabric.

The Open Hand Puppet Theater performed a puppet show, The Stone Cutter,  a Japanese folktale for our students. Students also worked with an Open Hand artist in residence, Leslie Archer, to design and direct their performances. 

Our students performed 12 different puppet plays based on 6 different African folktales for the students of our school. They did a fantastic job of writing the puppet plays and their puppets were truly beautiful works of art.

Congratulations 6th graders for your creativity, hard work and perseverance!

Rod puppets by fifth grade students.

Open Hand Puppet Theater performance of The Stone Cutter.

Salem Hyde fifth graders perform Anansi and the Talking Melon.