First day of Spring!

Hi everyone! It's the first day of spring but you'd never guess with all this snow and cold. We haven't seen Farmer Fern around yet...but look out for him. We hope he'll be out and about in the garden soon, as the earth wakes up and warms up...!

Farmer Fern Thanks You!

The falling autumn leaves and cooler nights in the garden means that it is time for our season of puppet sessions to wrap up for the year!

Heartfelt thanks to all our generous sponsors, partners, creative mentors & volunteers, namely...

Nathan, Erica & their wonderful family! 
Lea & volunteers at the Guelph Enabling Garden! 
Louisa, Sarah, Alisa & Marilyn, our creative mentors / puppeteers! Judith & Marcey of Spark of Brilliance! 
Guelph Community Foundation ~ Musagates Fund! 
Fred, Lynn and Susan of Trellis Mental Health & Developmental Services and Sue at KidsAbility!
Staff & volunteers at Playsense, The Well, Silent Voice Canada and First Steps Day Care!
and finally...all the great kids who attended our puppet sessions!

(For more information on our sponsors & partners, click here.)

See you in the Springtime when the birds start building their nests again and the lambs & kids are born!

    Photo by Van Waffle

Farmer Fern T-Shirts with Nathan's Drawing

Drawing by Nathan Gatten

Even though Farmer Fern's red flannel shirt is his favourite and warmest, he is getting his very own T-shirt printed soon! It will have a drawing of him that Nathan drew (pictured here).
If you'd like to order a t-shirt for yourself, contact us (with your t-shirt size) at farmerfernpuppets@gmail.com for colours, styles and prices.

Puppets & Preschoolers

Today, Farmer Fern met a lot of new friends. About 20 preschoolers from First Steps Day Care came to the Guelph Enabling Garden to watch a puppet play and to make a butterfly or dragonfly puppet.






Marilyn, one of our fabulous volunteers, prepared the craft activity ...she brought burrs from the forest, maple keys, glue guns, highlighters, black felt-tip markers, scissors and paper.

Here are some photos of the beautiful burr-butterflies and dragonflies that the children made with these materials.

Thanks for visiting and great work, kids! That was fun!

Where are the Kids?!

On August 15th, 2012, Farmer Fern, Cousin Cassidy, PJ Worm and a group of other puppet folk gathered at the Guelph Enabling Garden, ready to put on another puppet play. A photographer from one of the local papers arrived. The play was about to begin. It was nearly 10am but ...where were the kids?!!

Farmer Fern started to get a little worried. You see, puppets like to have an audience; it is no fun to put on a play without one!
Then, someone had a thought!
Maybe the kids can't find us?!  
Then, someone had an idea!
Maybe we could blow our horns and rattle our rattles and sing our songs so that the children would HEAR where we are and then follow the sounds to find us. So, we did just that. We walked around the garden, with finger puppet birds on our fingers. Whistling and chirping, we walked through the park, to the swings, around the curving paths...and finally the children came, from many directions! And then Farmer Fern smiled and started the play!! Yay!!

After the play, all the children made beautiful finger puppet birdies. You can see one here.

Thanks to the kids & parents in the community for joining in...and thanks to Nathan, Erica, Marilyn, Lea and Louisa for offering a great session!

And a special thank you to Jessica Lovell of the Guelph Tribune for making a special appearance!

Farmer Fern learns Sign Language!

Today, Farmer Fern took a trip to Toronto to visit a children's camp with his puppet friends. Some of the kids at the camp have parents or siblings that are deaf or hard of hearing, so they use their hands and facial expressions to communicate. That's called Sign Language. One of the staff members at Silent Voice will tell you about that in this video...

Farmer Fern at the Guelph Enabling Garden

Last Thursday, I met some great kids at the Guelph Enabling Garden with my friend, Lea, who is a Horticultural Therapist there and also with my cousin, Cassidy. Cassidy had never been to the garden before, so I answered all his questions about the garden, then took him...and all the kids too... on a little tour of my favourite place alongside the Speed River at Riverside Park. Then we all made butterfly puppets (some actually turned into snakes and bunnies!) which fluttered around the garden visiting the various flowers. We sang songs and played on a thumb piano. It was lots of fun! Thank you to the Lea, the Playsense Kids and Staff for a wonderful morning!

Here's a video that introduces you to the creative mentors of this puppet program: Nathan, Alisa, Louisa and Sarah! Lea (in the green shirt) is one of them too. Thanks to her for inviting them, and also to our friend Erica (behind the camera) for this short video!

Cousin Cassidy and I will be back at the Guelph Enabling Garden this Wednesday, July 16th. The puppet show starts at 10 a.m. We hope to see you there! 

The Guelph Enabling Garden is located in Riverside Park. Here is a link to their blog:
http://guelphenablinggarden.blogspot.ca/p/upcoming-events.html