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Curriculum Links: The Arts, Design & Technology, Humanities & Social Science, Health & Physical Education, Sustainability, Intercultural Understanding
Our comprehensive Primary School Incursion Info Pack outlines all the available options and curriculum links. For costs, check out Rate Card #1 – Primary School.
The Arts – Foundation to Year 2 AND Years 3 and 4
Incursions:
- Puppet Show with Larrikin Puppets (Prep to Year 2)
- Storytime Puppet Show (Prep to Year 2)
- Book Week Puppet Show – Storytime (Prep to Year 2)
- Book Week Puppet Show – All Together Now: A Celebration Of Cultural Diversity (Prep to Year 4)
- Sock Puppet Making Craft & Performance Workshop (Prep to Year 6)
- Sea Life Discovery Themed Puppet Show (Prep to Year 2)
- Christmas Themed Puppet Show (Prep to Year 2)
- Australia Themed Puppet Show (Prep to Year 2)
- Halloween Themed Puppet Show (Prep to Year 2)
Learning areas: Supports a students’ understanding of different artistic practices, and to respond and interpret those artworks. Students will practice responding to an artwork from the viewpoint of an audience. Covers 3 of the 5 Learning Areas: Drama, Music and Visual Arts.
Design & Technology – Foundation to Year 2
Incursions:
- Puppet Show with Larrikin Puppets (Prep to Year 2)
- Puppetry Performance Workshop (Prep to Year 6)
- Puppetry Performance Workshop Featuring Behind The Scenes Tour (Prep to Year 6)
- Puppetry Performance Workshop For Stage & Screen (Years 5 and 6 only)
- Monitor Puppetry Workshop For Film & TV (Years 5 and 6 only)
- Sock Puppet Making Craft & Performance Workshop (Prep to Year 6)
Learning areas: Supports a students’ understanding of how puppets work in action, with a view to designing and making a simple puppet; expressing likes and dislikes; and understanding how force and movement is created using materials.
Health & Physical Education – Foundation to Year 2
Incursions:
- Kindness & Anti-Bullying Puppet Show (Prep to Year 2)
- Health & Wellbeing Puppet Show (Prep to Year 2)
Learning areas: Supports students to develop knowledge, understanding and skills to live healthy, safe and active lives, focusing on their own wellbeing and those around them. Includes food, movement, kindness, confidence, fairness and respect. Students will identify and practice emotional responses that account for their own and others’ feelings.
Humanities & Social Science – Foundation to Year 2 AND Years 3 and 4
Incursions:
- What A Wonderful World: A Social Science Puppet Show
- Our Planet At Play School Edition: An Environmental Sustainability Puppet Show
Learning areas: Supports a student to develop an understanding of their own personal world and worlds they belong to including family, school and community. They will explore roles and responsibilities and ways people care for people, places and nature – including how we are connected. Introduces fundamentals of ecology, culture, technology, change and citizenship.
Sustainability – Foundation to Year 2 AND Years 3 and 4
Incursions:
- Our Planet At Play School Edition: An Environmental Sustainability Puppet Show
- What A Wonderful World: A Social Science Puppet Show
General Capabilities: Supports a student to develop an understanding of ecological and human systems and to appreciate their interdependence. Provides an introduction to the concept that sustainable patterns of living rely on the interdependence of healthy social, economic and ecological systems. Supports the development of world views necessary for students to create a more socially and ecologically just world.
Intercultural Understanding – Foundation to Year 2 AND Years 3 and 4
Incursions:
- All Together Now: A Celebration Of Cultural Diversity (Prep to Year 4)
- Australia Themed Puppet Show (Prep to Year 2)
General Capabilities: Support students to recognise culture and develop respect, including interacting and empathising with others, reflecting on intercultural experiences, and taking responsibility. Supports students to investigate culture and cultural identity; explore and compare cultural knowledge, beliefs and practices; develop respect for cultural diversity; communicate across cultures; consider and develop multiple perspectives; empathise with others; reflect on intercultural experiences; and challenge stereotypes and prejudices.
Our comprehensive Primary School Incursion Info Pack outlines all the available options and curriculum links. For costs, check out Rate Card #1 – Primary School.
Puppet Shows: Prep to Year 2
Larrikin Puppets provides colourful, exciting, educational and inspiring puppet shows for school children and their teachers featuring intriguing characters, songs, skits, jokes, games and live interaction.
Puppeteers Brett and Elissa, who have received training in the USA by puppeteers from The Muppets and Sesame Street, provide students with wide-eyed wonder, joy, laughter and intrigue from beginning to end.
Larrikin Puppets’ zany and always crowd-pleasing comedy-variety puppet show might appear to simply be a pop-up theatre show full of crazy songs, silly jokes and rollicking laughs. However, hidden in its seemingly wacky exterior are oodles of child development and learning experiences.
Founded by owner Brett Hansen in 2012, Larrikin Puppets won ‘Best Kids Live Show’ at the national 2021 What’s On 4 Kids Awards.
School puppet shows available to book for Prep to Year 2 ONLY include:
- Puppet Show with Larrikin Puppets
- Storytime Puppet Show
- Storytime Book Week Puppet Show
- Kindness & Anti-Bullying Puppet Show
- Health & Wellbeing Puppet Show
- Sea Life Discovery Themed Puppet Show
- Christmas Themed Puppet Show
- Australia Themed Puppet Show
- Halloween Themed Puppet Show
Major Puppet Show/Stage Shows: Prep to Year 4
What A Wonderful World: A Social Science Puppet Show
What A Wonderful World is a musical puppet stage show that introduces students aged 6 and under to social science education, and expands the horizons of students aged 7-9.
Troggg the friendly blue alien monster crash lands on Earth. With the help of social science communicator Elissa and her colourful, zany friends, Troggg and the audience learn about the importance of ecology, culture, technology, change, citizenship and connection through fun songs, skits, games and dance.
The show introduces students to the principles of social science with a focus on emotions, kindness, empathy, identity, difference/togetherness, friendship/belonging, and connection to nature, environment and sustainability. It stars loveable puppet characters such as Troggg, Marina, Scrambles, Freerange the Chicken, Lovelace the e-waste puppet, and a cast of sock puppets who like how they look, think and feel.
Our Planet At Play School Edition: An Environmental Sustainability Puppet Show
Our Planet At Play is an environmental sustainability puppet stage show for ages 5-9 that explores actions we can all take to make the world a better place. It is a fun, colourful, interactive show – in the style of The Muppets and Sesame Street – that includes a storytime segment and an act featuring Lovelace, the world’s first professional puppet made out of electronic waste.
This fast-paced, feel-good environmental sustainability puppet show encourages audiences to talk, play, sing, and dance along. It stars loveable puppet characters such as Troggg, Marina, Scrambles, Freerange the Chicken, Lovelace the e-waste puppet, as well as a variety of land animals and sea creatures.
All Together Now: A Celebration Of Cultural Diversity
Hosted by Melek and Zac, stars of the Australian children’s book “Hijabi Girl: Making Friends”, this colourful, exciting musical puppet variety stage show is for ages 5-9 and features a fun, colourful, diverse cast of Muppet-style puppet characters performing skits, jokes, catchy original songs (as heard on Spotify and Apple Music) and live interaction with the audience.
Ideal for Book Week or Intercultural studies, show stoppers – performed by puppeteers Brett and Elissa – include:
- A song about school playtime performed by a Turkish Kebab puppet and a puppet that is a plate of Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls.
- A song performed by Melek, a Turkish Muslim girl puppet who wears a hijab and wants to start her own all-girls Aussie Rules football team – and DOESN’T want to dress as Little Red Riding Hood in the Book Week Parade.
- A Sicilian language lesson, including a discussion about endangered languages.
- An AFL football puppet.
- A teacher rod puppet (large glasses).
- A song about how everyone has different interests and skills, performed by Tien, a Vietnamese girl puppet, with a chorus of singing pencil puppets.
- A reading of an excerpt from “Hijabi Girl: Making Friends”, a children’s book by prolific Australian author Hazel Edwards OAM and Turkish-Australian Muslim co-author Ozge Alkan, and illustrated by Serena Geddes.
We have received encouragement and approvals from the authors to perform these characters. Elissa identifies as Sicilian-Australian and grew up speaking Sicilian with her Nonna.
Puppetry Performance Workshops: Prep to Year 6
Larrikin Puppets’ interactive puppetry workshops, led by professional performing artists Brett Hansen and Elissa Jenkins, give primary school students a rare opportunity to learn the fundamental techniques that bring Muppet-style puppet characters to life.
These puppetry performance workshops are hands-on workshops that provide an introduction to puppetry arts, with a focus on Muppet-style puppetry. Students learn lip sync, eye focus, walking, arm movement, emotions, and character voices.
Each student is provided with a professional workshop puppet to use in the session and will learn eye focus using little puppet “hand eyes”. Larrikin Puppets won Best Local School Aged Activity (5-12 years) at the national 2021 What’s On 4 Kids Awards.
Students will learn the puppetry arts practice that informs:
- TV shows like Sesame Street, The Muppets, Fraggle Rock, Helpsters, Dark Crystal.
- Characters such as Grogu (baby Yoda), Elmo, Kermit, Cookie Monster, Big Bird.
Puppetry Performance Workshop
Prep to Year 6, Max 50 students per workshop, 1 hour
Includes:
- a short puppet show demonstrating how the puppets look when performed – 10 mins
- an educational talk about different styles of puppetry – 5 mins
- an educational talk about Muppet-style puppetry and how the puppets work – 5 mins
- a hands-on puppetry performance workshop – 25 mins
- a performance of skits from students to demonstrate what they have learnt – 10 mins
- Q&A session – 5 mins
Puppetry Performance Workshop Featuring Behind The Scenes Tour
Prep to Year 6, Max 50 students per workshop, 1 1/2 hours
All the inclusions of a Puppetry Performance Workshop PLUS the students will:
- view the short puppet show from both the audience perspective and from backstage, watching the puppeteers in action.
- learn a group puppet dance choreography.
Puppetry Performance Workshop For Stage & Screen
Years 5 and 6 only. Max 50 students per workshop, 2 hours
All the inclusions of a Puppetry Performance Workshop PLUS the students will learn the unique and challenging skill of monitor puppetry for Film and TV including:
- a demonstration of monitor puppetry.
- an explanation about “how” and “why” monitors are used for film and TV puppetry.
- how to use a monitor to perform a puppet within a camera frame.
- how to make a puppet seem real on camera using eye focus, walking and lip sync, all while keeping human/puppeteer heads and arms out of the shot.
- how to frame a single puppet and work with more than one puppet in a frame, in conversation.
- performing a group puppet dance choreography, recorded on video.
Monitor Puppetry For Film & TV
Years 5 and 6 only. Max 30 students per workshop, 2 hours
Larrikin Puppets provides primary school students a rare opportunity to learn the basic techniques that bring Muppet-style puppet characters to the screen.
This interactive, practical workshop is led by professional film and television puppeteers Brett Hansen and Elissa Jenkins who were formally trained in the USA by puppeteers from Sesame Street and The Muppets.
Brett and Elissa regularly perform puppetry for television, music videos, corporate videos and online. Most people do not know what’s involved in filming puppetry. It’s harder than it looks – and most people don’t know how it works!
Puppet Building Workshops: Prep to Year 6
Larrikin Puppets offers a cross-curriculum workshop that combines design and technology, visual arts and drama – and it’s our premium option for primary schools.
Sock Puppet Making Craft & Performance Workshop
Max 50 students per workshop, 2 or 2 1/2 hours
The workshop runs for 2 or, preferably, 2 1/2 hours (with a recess break) and features:
- a short puppet show demonstrating how puppets look, including sock puppets, when performed live – 10 mins
- an educational talk about different styles of puppetry – 5 mins
- an educational talk about Muppet-style puppetry and how the puppets work – 5 mins
- sock puppet making craft workshop – 70-80 mins
- puppetry performance workshop – 35-45 mins
- Q&A session – 5 mins
Using colourful puppetry kits featuring a range of pre-cut materials, including foam mouthplates, we teach students how to construct a beautifully detailed, quality sock puppet they can perform with and take home – something that has a long shelf life that won’t just be thrown away.
The craft segment is followed by a puppetry performance workshop where we teach how to operate Muppet-style puppets. We lend everyone a professional puppet to work with as we teach lip sync, arm movements, emotions, voice work, walking and various other techniques used to bring puppets to life.
For Prep to Year 2 students, it’s a fun, playful way to develop their fine and gross motor skills; practice listening, focusing, following directions and making decisions; and build confidence in public speaking and performing.
For Years 3-6 students, it’s an opportunity to express themselves creatively using the artform of puppetry; better understand how puppets are built using three dimensional foam design and construction; and extend their knowledge of how puppets are performed on stage (in theatres) and on screen (film and tv).
Our comprehensive Primary School Incursion Info Pack outlines all the available options and curriculum links. For costs, check out Rate Card #1 – Primary School.
