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Presenting: Educational programs relating to kids with disabilities or differences. We are waiting and ready to visit - Your School!

Information: Call the Special Needs Support Center of the Upper Valley office at 603-448-6311 or the KOB Coordinator Ann Justice at 603-795-2105 for further information or scheduling.

We offer short amusing skits, usually two or three in a performance, which are both educational and informative. After each skit the audience is invited to ask the puppets questions.

See the "Kids on the Block" in action: (Windows Media) (QuickTime)

Packets of activities to be used in the classroom as preparation and/or follow-up are included:

	The puppets have names, families, and friends just the way you and I do; the only difference is that they also have some challenges that not everyone shares.
	The puppets help to promote understanding and overcome difficulties through their insight and suggestions.

Skits Available

Visual Impairment Cerebral Palsy Spina Bifida Mental Retardation/Down Syndrome Autism Emotional Disburance Tobacco, Alcohol, Drugs Bullies and School Safety Multiculturalism Healthy Snacking

Asthma Childhood Cancer Diabetes ADHD Child of Divorced Parents Learning Disabilities Epilepsy Sexual Abuse Physical Abuse Obesity

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In the 2006-07 school year, the five KOB puppeteers provided a full year of performances all over the state of NH and parts of Vermont in the Upper Valley. They gave 54 performances to 19 audiences totaling 2638 kids and adults. (They usually do 2-4 skits at each school performance). They put 2382 miles on their cars in traveling all over the State of New Hampshire from Candia and Manchester in the south to Tamworth and Bethlehem in the north and many places in between, and also 5 schools on the Vermont side of the Upper Valley. A special performance this year included one to the Sibshop group in Lebanon where they did a "dress rehearsal of their new "Obesity" puppet skit. An extensive use of the KOB performance repetoire involved 14 of the possible 23 skits available.

The most popular skits were Bullying and Healthy Snacking. The introduction of the Obesity skit will make a powerful one-two combination with Healthy Snacking and together address a "hot topic" for children and schools. In order of demand are the 14 skits performed this year were: Bullying-15, Healthy Snacking-13, Obesity-7, Divorce-5, Cancer-3, Autism-2, Asthma-2, Diabetes-2, Cerebral Palsy-2, Drugs/Tobacco/ATOD/School Safety/Multiculturalism-all 1 each.

The most poignant presentation for the puppeteers this year - one which "made it all worthwhile" - was the skit on Cancer given to an elementary school that had two students with that disease, one of whom died very shortly before KOB came to the school. According to school staff, the students as well as staff had been avoiding/unable to deal directly with each other about this issue; often not able even to look each other in the eye and certainly not to talk about it. The puppeteers learned that immediately after their performance students were observed walking down the hall openly talking to each other, and especially to the one student with cancer, about the whole issue of cancer and how they felt, etc. This is what KOB is all about-opening up dialogue about difficult but important issues!

The overall number of performances this year was down slightly from previous years. We are speculating that a major reason for this decline is the extreme overload on the schools to do more and more testing and this impacts their time available for valuable programs and experiences such as KOB performances. This explanation might be applied to the limited scheduling by the 30 elementary schools in Manchester who were offered the KOB performances free of charge by the Partners in Health program in Manchester who had received a PIH Community Initiative grant to fund this resource. Only seven of the schools requested the KOB performances.

The puppeteers include Ann Justice (Coordinator), Merry Converse, Barbara Payson, Bev Strout, and Barbara Whitman. Lilla Willey is Puppeteer Emeritus and Judy Thrasher is Puppeteer on Medical Leave. We hope that she can re-join the troupe next year. There will also be a new volunteer joining next year. Janet Eller has already attended several KOB performances and is working on learning the skits.

Next year, in publicizing the availability of KOB (we send letters to all public and private elementary schools in NH and the Upper Valley), we plan to include contacts to the home schooling organizations. We anticipate that this will be a fruitful source of increased use of this wonderful resource. We will also advertise to Headstart programs as these should also be most interested in seeing the KOB performances.

Visit the National Office of Kids on the Block for infomation on other Kids on the Block programs throughout the nation.

Email: kob@nhsupport.net

Kids on the Block IS supported by United Way and other local organizations and private donors.

Parent to Parent of New Hampshire You are not alone....we have been there.

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The Parent to Parent of New Hampshire homepage address is http://www.parenttoparentnh.org