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Puppet Portal Hospital C - Day 6 | Puppet Portal Project Hospital C
2009-06-10
Puppet Portal Hospital C - Day 6
Exciting arrival by post this morning of an agile hurling puppet called Paddy from Limerick. He was soon educated in the joys of football however, and was challenged to many games throughout the day!
An invitation to explore one of the five continents (last week we explored the Australian outback) was quashed early in favour of homegrown Irish football grounds. A child of one of the doctors passing through made a lovely aerial puppet (inspired by design from Hospital B) and flew off with it just as quick.
One little boy arrived to the hospital and before he got as far as the ward was brought to the puppet workshop. He and his bear got stuck straight in with great enthusiasm while parents stood back with a mixture of delight, semi-amazement and relief. A link-up with a sister hospital, other than the three others, was underway and the personalities and excitement developed from there. There was lots of demonstrations of singing and dancing at this link-up and fueled a passion for puppet-making afterwards. From the reaction of this child`s parents, the staff and teachers could see immediately how the experience had a genuine effect of dispelling all the stress and anxiety of an anticipated stay in hospital on arrival. The mum put a lovely comment straight up on our puppet window and later these parents had loads of thanks and offers to support the project in any way they could. The principal of the school, who has been 120 per cent behind the puppet portal project since the pilot phase, commented that one day maybe the porters who take the children to operating theatre might try out a puppet to help them get on the trolley with a little more peace of mind....there`s great potential for that idea!
So a teddy puppet was made and had a drama in his cave to do with honey pots, gigantic bears and a honey-loving fairy puppet who was magically brought back to life after her limbs were eaten by the bear two minutes previous.
Another participant joined later with her puppet from a previous session and took part in a honey adventure and a penalty shoot-out refereed by the fairy. Poor Paddy did not get much of a look in throughout - the passion for their own puppets didnt give him a chance.
Today felt great and that was a lot to do with the outgoingness and enjoyment level expressed by the children participating. Again, I realise how my own energy levels and enthusiasm is influenced by those of the participants. Today there was also a more fluid play atmosphere that came from the free-rolling imaginations of the children - I think the younger age groups find this easier.
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