Children's Theater--Eric Carle

Last week, we pulled out all our Eric Carle books and reread them. He is an amazing children's author and illustrator. His books are great for reading to the three kids all together. I found a book at the library that talks about how he does his art work and we have done some art projects in the past based on a few of his books.

We saw the Mermaid Theater of Nova Scotia at the Children's Theater of Winston Salem. They are puppeteers and they performed Little Cloud, The Mixed Up Chameleon, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It was an amazing performance. There were just two puppeteers doing the whole show along with some help from their stage manager. They dress in all black (including masks) and use black curtains on the stage so that the puppets looked like they were floating in the air or moving all by themselves. They also used black lights to make the colors glow in the dark. Of course we were not allowed to take any pictures during the performance but I would encourage you to look them up and go to a performance.

After the performance, we were just hanging back and letting the crowds leave. Then we were surprised when the puppeteers came out and answered more questions and let us touch and see any of the puppets we wanted.

Gabe tried to walk off with the caterpillar. My favorite puppet was the chameleon (there were actually 7 different chameleon puppets because of all the color changing he does). Olivia said she liked them all. JR says he didn't have a favorite. JR and I  admit that we probably liked it as much as the kids or more. :) While Ezra didn't voice any opinions, he blew lots of raspberries during the performance which is usually a sign of approval.