Artist in Residency

The success for this project will be seen in many ways. First in creating the puppets they will be making creatures from many types of material. The follow up in painting them and then actually using them in a parade experience will give the children a chance to see them come to life. The whole experience will be one that will be creative and one that they will remember. The activities that Chris has planned for this residency will lead to the children to create puppets in a creative manner. The puppets will have many facial expressions that the children can combine with other puppets to create many moods. The project is so new for the children that it will be one they will remember for years to come. The arts experience to be gained by the children will not only encourage creativeness but also give the children one of their first experiences of working together toward a common goal of creating puppets. This experience will also be unique for one of our educational partners in which the College of Saint Benedict students who work with the children will have a special learning experience. They will now have a new way to teach art lessons to their future classes. To give them this opportunity to have a hands experience in such a new learning project will be one that will impact their teaching for years to come. This experience will result in these future kindergarten teachers preparing a unit plan for their future classrooms about puppets.Since this is such a hands-on project, the vast majority of the evaluation will be done by observation. The teachers have a number of measurements that are used to make artistic goals. They will have a daily journal of what is taking place with the children. Also, we will ask Chris to keep a log of what he sees the children doing as the puppets evolve. The main assessment for the project will be done by John who is a former teacher and university dean. He will be writing the evaluation report for the project. Also, the principal and art teacher will be involved in assessing the value of the project. As described earlier it will be the daily logs of the teachers who will keep track of how the children are progressing in making the puppets. The main thing we plan to learn from this project is to see how such a unique one can take place at the kindergarten level. We are bringing a new opportunity to these young children for the first time. The teachers are excited to make this happen for the children. We plan to use the results of our evaluation in planning for a project like this in the future for our primary age children. In making this available for the first time to such a young audience at Clearview Elementary we are bringing puppetry alive for 100 children. This has not happened before and thus we are clearly meeting the goal of making art more accessible for Minnesotans. We will measure this outcome by seeing the final result at the public program when the children display their work. But also, we will see what the teachers and Chris say in their journals about the project on a daily basis.