Lights, Camera, Action!
Today I want to talk about performing in the early primary years.
As an avid theater fan and amateur actor--I can tell you that I honestly love exploring performance with my students. Performance happens every day in the world of a preschool student. It happens when we play, when we invent stories, and when we share our experiences with one another. We assume roles, learn new ways to move our bodies, and explore vocal sounds. Preschool students are a wonder to marvel at because many of them are wonderfully uninhibited and eager to share new found discoveries with others. Preschool students learn to collaborate and add onto the imaginative narration of others. I'm one lucky guest to witness all of this on a day to day basis. Yes, I love watching my children explore performance in a natural and experimental play based environment.
On the opposite side of the spectrum we have the world of formal performance. Each and every year I've worked in Thailand, I have had a heavy hand in the direction of the Christmas Concert and the Spring Concert.
Now I'm about to let some true feelings fly here. If you can't handle the truth--get out now.
Directing and piecing together a concert for sixty plus students that will please parents, other teachers, administration, and still represent the learners you are seeking to nurture will lead you into a minefield of political flim-flam.
I'm going to go talk to some ice cream about this.
I've learned a lot about putting together a concert twice a year and I'd like to share my tips with you today. Please note, I am by no means the authority on putting together a concert and there are many who do it MUCH better than me.
My friends, if you MUST put on a concert to showcase your children's abilities:
So keeping these thoughts in mind, I set about crafting my class's end performance piece. This year we had studied Julia Donaldson and the many ways we express ourselves. We had practiced acting out stories, singing stories, telling stories with our voices, drawing stories, and writing our stories.
We took small chunks of this song--practicing for over nine weeks--a little bit a day. As you can see there are a lot of complex movements in this song and learning all of the special signs took some time to do. To encourage the students to enjoy the process of practicing (let's face it--practicing isn't always the most exciting element of performance) we worked towards a whole class reward of a Jungle Party. We'd also play small games at the end of performance.
As an avid theater fan and amateur actor--I can tell you that I honestly love exploring performance with my students. Performance happens every day in the world of a preschool student. It happens when we play, when we invent stories, and when we share our experiences with one another. We assume roles, learn new ways to move our bodies, and explore vocal sounds. Preschool students are a wonder to marvel at because many of them are wonderfully uninhibited and eager to share new found discoveries with others. Preschool students learn to collaborate and add onto the imaginative narration of others. I'm one lucky guest to witness all of this on a day to day basis. Yes, I love watching my children explore performance in a natural and experimental play based environment.
On the opposite side of the spectrum we have the world of formal performance. Each and every year I've worked in Thailand, I have had a heavy hand in the direction of the Christmas Concert and the Spring Concert.
Now I'm about to let some true feelings fly here. If you can't handle the truth--get out now.
Directing and piecing together a concert for sixty plus students that will please parents, other teachers, administration, and still represent the learners you are seeking to nurture will lead you into a minefield of political flim-flam.
I'm going to go talk to some ice cream about this.
I've learned a lot about putting together a concert twice a year and I'd like to share my tips with you today. Please note, I am by no means the authority on putting together a concert and there are many who do it MUCH better than me.
My friends, if you MUST put on a concert to showcase your children's abilities:
DO keep the material within the children's developmental capabilities.
DO trust the people you work with.
DO keep the performance short--but polished
DO let your children have ownership of their pieces
DO celebrate a job well done as a classroom community
DO involve your students as much as possible in the process of performing
DO remember it's all about the process--not the product
DON'T lose sight of who you really serve--advocate for the rights of your students
Most importantly--and this is something I have HAD to work on....
DO remember to just breathe...
... it's all going to be okay in the end... and if it's not... it isn't the end.
Eager to explore new ways to express ourselves we decided to tell our story through a form of sign language--specifically makaton. Signing is something that happens naturally in the classroom without formal education. We use body language to emphasis moods, elements of stories, and clarify opinions. I teach some formal signs in the classroom to assist students who are still learning English and students who experience communication difficulties. In a classroom of fifteen different nationalities--body language really is the universal expression. Using sign language can make us better communicators and aware of the feelings of others.
Check out our song--sung by Julia Donaldson! We performed a piece called Monkey Puzzle. This is a story about a young monkey who becomes lost and must find his mother. A butterfly helps him find his mother--but mistakenly confuses the animal that he's looking for. The monkey must give him clues to help find his mother.
We took small chunks of this song--practicing for over nine weeks--a little bit a day. As you can see there are a lot of complex movements in this song and learning all of the special signs took some time to do. To encourage the students to enjoy the process of practicing (let's face it--practicing isn't always the most exciting element of performance) we worked towards a whole class reward of a Jungle Party. We'd also play small games at the end of performance.
When creating our costumes, I wanted the students to have an active role in the process of costume construction.
How can we make ourselves look like monkeys?
Our Ideas:
We could have a banana microphone to sing into
We could make monkey hats.
We will need big ears.
We could make tails.
We can put bananas on our T shirts.
We discussed each idea as a class. We couldn't hold a microphone because we had to use our hands to sign. We could make banana jewelry instead! We could make monkey hats! These hats could have big ears! Tails might be hard to make and we wouldn't be able to see them because we'd be facing our mums and dads while performing. We could put bananas on our T Shirts. We could use paint. We got our creative juices flowing and then we set off to create!
You might remember my post a couple of weeks ago about making clay jewelry. We painted the jewelry with neon poster paint. This took two coats of paint about two weeks to complete (Tip! Give yourself plenty of time to make costumes!). After the beads and the bananas dried, my incredibly patient and wonderful Teaching Assistant Ms. Ploy took the children one by one and helped them to string beads and bananas onto stretchy fishing wire! The necklaces looked marvelous! This is definitely one of the benefits of having extra hands in the classroom to help. While Ms. Ploy helped the students one at a time, I carried on the day's lessons. A girl can get truly spoiled with a gem like her in the classroom.
Check out the blog on how we made these necklaces here!
Next we set about making our hats. I had no idea how to make hats from scratch. Luckily, I am friends with the wonderful Rosie Bird and I remember not too long ago she made awesome looking alien hats. This lady is the master of creating art with her children!
Now, a paper mache project WILL come out looking awesome, but you're going to have to do some deep breaths to get through the process with sixteen four year old students. Planning ample time for this project is a MUST!
First we covered extra large balloons in newspaper and white glue.
Next we painted them brown. I mixed white glue into the paint to add extra adhesive to the project.
Next students worked with more glue to create the fur! Some of us wanted spikey fur, some of us wanted flat fur. I allowed the students to craft their hats. To add some texture and depth to the project I purchased some textured brown paper from a local craft store.
Next, we began to make our crowns. I wanted the children to have uniquely individual hats. We made the crowns from yellow paper and we made patterns with oil pastels on them. Students then added different color leaves to add depth and texture to the piece.
Finally, students took at trip to the material store. At the material store I had laid out snakes, flowers, birds, and butterflies for the students to decorate their hats with. I allowed the students to choose (we all like choice) whether they wanted to paint or color their decorative pieces.
Our material store: Students can come and choose the items they would like. For this particular Material Store, I asked the students to start with one animal picture and one plant picture. Some students finished early and came back for more. That's okay! Students are asked to only take what they need for the material store. They can return things they don't use. We work hard to keep our material store neat while we are working.
We put it all together with staples, glue, hot glue, and tape! Students added finishing sparkles to the hats as well!
Check out these marvelous creations! Here they are laid out on the table and ready for showtime!
At home I painted the banana shirts and stenciled their names onto the back of the T Shirt. I hope that they will use this shirt to remember our special process.
To help decorate our stage area, the students constructed a giant lion with Ms. Ploy! We used marbled orange paper, glue, newspaper, and other found materials to create this collaborative work.
Another project we did during this process involved creating animal riddles. In the book Monkey Puzzle, the butterfly has to guess what the monkey's mom looks like by listening to the clues the monkey gives. We designed our own animal riddles by backwards planning. First, the students thought of an animal. Then they used oil pastels and watercolors to paint and color their animal. Next they gave clues to the read about their animal. We had a lot of fun guessing each other's animals!
As a finishing touch to these animals and to tie it into our study of sign language, we learned the signs for our given animal! To display this process, we hung our animal riddles around the school for the parents to read on the concert day!
Can you guess the signs?
On the day of the concert, the students performed so beautifully and it was such a joy to see how far they had come in their overall confidence and ability to perform in front of others! I couldn't be prouder of these great learners!
Until next time learning buddies,
Sam
You might remember my post a couple of weeks ago about making clay jewelry. We painted the jewelry with neon poster paint. This took two coats of paint about two weeks to complete (Tip! Give yourself plenty of time to make costumes!). After the beads and the bananas dried, my incredibly patient and wonderful Teaching Assistant Ms. Ploy took the children one by one and helped them to string beads and bananas onto stretchy fishing wire! The necklaces looked marvelous! This is definitely one of the benefits of having extra hands in the classroom to help. While Ms. Ploy helped the students one at a time, I carried on the day's lessons. A girl can get truly spoiled with a gem like her in the classroom.
Check out the blog on how we made these necklaces here!
Next we set about making our hats. I had no idea how to make hats from scratch. Luckily, I am friends with the wonderful Rosie Bird and I remember not too long ago she made awesome looking alien hats. This lady is the master of creating art with her children!
A quick message to her and she had me convinced that paper mache was the way to go. ...gulp....
Now, a paper mache project WILL come out looking awesome, but you're going to have to do some deep breaths to get through the process with sixteen four year old students. Planning ample time for this project is a MUST!
First we covered extra large balloons in newspaper and white glue.
Next we painted them brown. I mixed white glue into the paint to add extra adhesive to the project.
Next students worked with more glue to create the fur! Some of us wanted spikey fur, some of us wanted flat fur. I allowed the students to craft their hats. To add some texture and depth to the project I purchased some textured brown paper from a local craft store.
Next, we began to make our crowns. I wanted the children to have uniquely individual hats. We made the crowns from yellow paper and we made patterns with oil pastels on them. Students then added different color leaves to add depth and texture to the piece.
Finally, students took at trip to the material store. At the material store I had laid out snakes, flowers, birds, and butterflies for the students to decorate their hats with. I allowed the students to choose (we all like choice) whether they wanted to paint or color their decorative pieces.
Our material store: Students can come and choose the items they would like. For this particular Material Store, I asked the students to start with one animal picture and one plant picture. Some students finished early and came back for more. That's okay! Students are asked to only take what they need for the material store. They can return things they don't use. We work hard to keep our material store neat while we are working.
We put it all together with staples, glue, hot glue, and tape! Students added finishing sparkles to the hats as well!
Check out these marvelous creations! Here they are laid out on the table and ready for showtime!
At home I painted the banana shirts and stenciled their names onto the back of the T Shirt. I hope that they will use this shirt to remember our special process.
To help decorate our stage area, the students constructed a giant lion with Ms. Ploy! We used marbled orange paper, glue, newspaper, and other found materials to create this collaborative work.
Another project we did during this process involved creating animal riddles. In the book Monkey Puzzle, the butterfly has to guess what the monkey's mom looks like by listening to the clues the monkey gives. We designed our own animal riddles by backwards planning. First, the students thought of an animal. Then they used oil pastels and watercolors to paint and color their animal. Next they gave clues to the read about their animal. We had a lot of fun guessing each other's animals!
As a finishing touch to these animals and to tie it into our study of sign language, we learned the signs for our given animal! To display this process, we hung our animal riddles around the school for the parents to read on the concert day!
Can you guess the signs?
tiger and cheetah
snakes (snakes were popular!)
snake and tiger
parrot and elephant
monkey and snake
caterpillar and cheetah
On the day of the concert, the students performed so beautifully and it was such a joy to see how far they had come in their overall confidence and ability to perform in front of others! I couldn't be prouder of these great learners!
Until next time learning buddies,
Sam
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