Puppetry and Ventriloquism

Ventriloquism is to Puppetry as Square is to Rectangle.  A Ventriloquist IS a puppeteer, but not all puppeteers are ventriloquists. I am irked when ventriloquism and puppetry are separated out as if they were two different things. They are not. The misunderstanding comes from the time when the popular ventriloquists of the day used the hard figure or ventriloquist dummy exclusively, but ventriloquism is not limited to the use of these traditional style instruments. Shari Lewis’ Lambchop is a ventriloquist figure but is not a hard figure. These days ventriloquists talk of hard figures and soft figures to differentiate between … Continue reading

The Bee Keeping Home Educator

Kinesthetic learners do best when doing. Hands on, action, and linking this with the material to be mastered. This has been a huge shift in my understanding of my vocation as a home educating mom. I’ve a bug nut. This is the kid who for most of her 7+ years has followed insects through the grass, getting up very close to see what they were doing. This is the kid who rescues bees from water buckets and places them on leaves to dry out and does not get stung. This is the kid who needs to be channeled into pollinators … Continue reading

AUTOHARP DREAMING

The autoharp is an instrument I never tire of hearing or strumming. Not that I am a musician by any means, I love music, but my natural talent is meager at best, and my inclination to make time for practice is weak. However, I have persisted in collecting several lovely instruments and wanting to play them in spite of myself. Enter Habitica. I wrote about this useful tool in another post here. On the site of Habitica, there are groups called Guilds. I joined a guild for people who were struggling. The premise of this group is to discover ONE … Continue reading