Using puppets as trick-or-treaters and a scary homeowner who invited them into his house, Ridgefield middle schoolers taught second graders about stranger danger in one of multiple skits at View Ridge Middle School’s black box theater room last week in Ridgefield.
While the younger students enjoyed the funny skits featuring puppets in different scenarios, the performance marked the end of a two-month creative project for the seventh and eighth graders.
View Ridge art teacher Michelle Hankins and performing arts teacher Courtney Thompson arranged for their respective classes to work together to produce a puppet show at the middle school to entertain students from South Ridge and Union Ridge elementary schools on Tuesday, Nov. 19, and Thursday, Nov. 21.
Hankins started her theater project last year on a smaller scale before expanding it to include a theater class this year. First Hankins’ art students crafted the puppets and set props to be used. Then, they and Thompson’s students created small scripts they later performed in front of the elementary students.
“I feel like at a middle school level, middle school kids are kind of looked down upon because they’re going through this like huge hormonal change, and so we try to put them in a positive light,” Hankins said. “And so getting to be that role model for a little kid really just gets them excited. I mean, a lot of them are babysitters. A lot of them, when the little kids come, those are their siblings or their little cousins, and so they’re really excited, and we get to see our middle schoolers in a different light.”
It took the students approximately two months to craft the puppets and create the skits. During that time, students learned problem-solving, teamwork, sewing and crafting and script writing and had a lot of fun throughout the process.
Sometimes in class, the students formed sewing circles to help each other thread and put together pieces of the puppets, Hankins said.
Sewing, Hankins said, is a skill she hopes her students find valuable later in life.
“My students learn how to sew, which I think is just a really important skill,” Hankins said, adding that they have started fixing their clothes’ holes with needle and thread. “So I think that’s really cool that they’re taking something that they can use in everyday life and they’re applying it.”
Hankins also pointed out to her students that their art was used to make art during the production, “and I was like, ‘how cool is that?’”
Using puppets including the sandworm in Beetlejuice, to a Kermit the Frog look-alike, dinosaurs and more, the students performed a 40-minute series of skits, some with lessons, such as sharing is caring, and some just funny, such as a comedic homeowner association complaint scenario, and one with the tooth fairy.
“There just seems like there’s way less self-consciousness from the performers when they’re [in front of] little kids like that,” Thompson said of the seventh and eighth grade puppeteers. “So they enjoyed the reactions that the little kids gave them, lots of laughs and stuff.”
Hankins said the community of Ridgefield is already strong, but bringing the little kids to the big kids strengthens that community aspect even more.
Ridgefield School District Director of Communications Joe Vajgrt believes that few school districts offer opportunities for students to collaboratively learn sewing, general art sketching, set and costume design, writing, drama, acting and being mentors to younger children.
Combined, Hankins said it is heartwarming to see and be a part of a production that impacts so many students positively, especially the younger ones, who look up to their older peers.
“... They get to see the big kids in front of them. It gets them excited to be up here one day, which is what we hope because we’re awesome,” Hankins said proudly.
