For more than twenty years, the Expressive Arts Program at Pacific
Primary has helped children learn to identify their feelings and to express themselves through art and puppet play. The program allows
children to work with a wide variety of artistic materials (both
traditional and non-traditional) and encourages "open-ended" artistic
expression. Several times each week, small groups of children leave
their individual classrooms and join Elyse Jacobs, the program director, to make art and play with puppets in the Arts and Music
Room. Children use tape, beads, ribbon, colored wire, fabric, egg
cartons, cardboard tubes, corkboard, pinecones, tiles, bubble wrap,
and an endless variety of other "found materials" to create art.
The Expressive Arts Program originated as a peace-education program that used puppets to help children learn basic social and emotional skills. This focus remains a core concept of the program, as do the puppets. Several puppets, including Turtle and SuperSeaweed, have nurtured generations of Pacific Primary students.
Working with puppets, children develop their social skills and emotional intelligence. The puppet program helps children with conflict resolution, listening, self expression, empathy, and emotional honesty. Teachers frequently use puppets to explore difficult social issues that arise inevitably during the school year. These issues include making and maintaining friendships, entering play, inclusion and exclusion, fears and anxieties, appreciation of differences, and personal loss.
Above, you can watch a brief video of the Expressive Arts program in action. You will see children in the Gray Whale room during a typical morning "circle time" with Elyse Jacobs, Turtle, and SuperSeaweed. During a previous "Turtle Circle," several children expressed their fear of SuperSeaweed's witch-like pointy nose and chin. This led to a
discussion of how differences can sometimes feel scary at first.
In this clip, Elyse starts with Turtle, but the children quickly ask to see SuperSeaweed. They comment that her nose is still pointy, and some still find it scary. Determining that the level of fear is actually quite low, Elyse begins a game that brings the puppet into closer contact with the children. This exercise offers the children an opportunity
to move beyond their fears.
Watch as one child, who at first says that SuperSeaweed is scary, decides that he wants try giving her a hug.
(Technical note: you may need to click on the "play" button twice to start the video. If the video does not play, check to see whether your browser is blocking it. Internet Explorer users will usually need to allow "ActiveX" content. Typically, the browser will display a yellow bar up near the browser menus asking you to click there to allow ActiveX content to play.)