"We are doing a show." Part 4

After winter break, the Greenies are ready to get back to work on our show! The first backdrop, the castle, is done. Time to work on the second backdrop- a cave and woods as dictated by the Greenies- and ask a parent for some help creating a way to hold up curtains!

1.2

The Greenies are anxious to finish the backdrops as our stage space becomes more real. We revisit the idea of sketching our ideas for the second backdrop- a cave and woods. I receive many drawings of caves represented by arching lines and dark colors. We are also working on figuring out how to hold up curtains. I turn to a parent in our classroom who has helped us in the past. I share our ideas and he offers to help out.

BA runs through the new curtains!

 1.10

Andy, BA’s dad, builds a curtain holder for the play. I mentioned our need for this last week, he and BA built it over the weekend. He drills holes about 1/2 way down for us to us as puppet theater as well.

We meet again as a group to find out what is left to do.

JH- We still need to work on dinner (food for the families who come to the play.)

LL- We need to finish OM’s cave.

OM- We can buy costumes.

JH- we can move the chairs like when we did “Mortimer” this summer.

We also discuss needing to pick a date, making tickets, etc.

We plan to return the borrowed costumes and find the box of fabrics to encourage the Greenies to begin thinking about how to make costumes.

1.13

Second backdrop completed! 

OM and LL work on the cave painting. OM takes great responsibility of this backdrop as it represents the home of her character in the play.

 

Greenies help to add trees to the cave scene. I help by oainting basic tree shapes. CE reminds me of Picasso in her striped shirt but poses in a Pollack kind of way, using her whole body.

JMH adds his own trees using markers.

1.16

We take the borrowed costumes out and bring in a box of fabrics as a provocation for making their own costumes. We also pick a date: Friday Feb. 10^th for the play. The Greenies and parents are excited as it become real- or as they say, "for real life!" We also plan field trip to go to the local theatre to see what a real theatre with a stage and curtains looks like. 

 Next post- making costumes and finalizing plans for the big day!

"We are doing a show." Part 3

The Greenies have shared their ideas as a group and the ideas have been captured in the form of a language chart. We are ready to take these ideas and begin to bring them to fruition. We begin by redefining our space and making intentional changes.

"The week of 12.12 we clear out the dramatic play space and begin to plan how to assist the Greenies in making their ideas represented. We go to our parents as a resource and ask if anyone has extra bed sheets at home to use as backdrops. The Greenies also want a stage. We think about our resources and decide that a ‘real stage’ may not be one of the ideas we can fully accommodate. After some more thinking, a Greenie suggests we use boxes. We procure a few boxes from our kitchen and flatten them. The Greenies arrange them on the floor of our dramatic play area. A large group of Greenies come over and dance joyfully on their stage.

12.16 

We get two white bed sheets a coworker had from home. After some discussion the Greenies decide we will need a cave, woods, and a castle. We set out markers and ask if anyone would like to come and sketch some castles for us. A large group of Greenies eagerly gathers at a long table and begin to sketch. After gathering and reviewing all of the sketches the Greenies identify KW as the one who should paint the castle. 

On 12.19 KW, SS and Rebbecca paint the outline of the castle based on KW’s sketch. Over the next few days other Greenies add their touch in paint and marker.  We pin up the completed backdrop and borrow some fantasy related costumes from another classroom.  

We begin to paint the castle based on KW's sketch. He leads the way directing the project of painting the castle. 

RB paints the door of the castle pink, "Because it's the princesses castle and I know she likes pink."

 

We take a break from adding more as the holidays approach; we add borrowed costumes from another classroom. Parents begin to ask when we will be doing our play- the Greenies have been discussing this at home. We explain to the parents the importance of taking our time to get the most out of the project."

 

Greenies explore the space in costume, bringing a sense of reality to our project.

 Next blog- The Greenies finish the backdrops and we utilize our parent resources to build "curtains that work" for our set!

 

"We are doing a show." Part 2

The group of Greenies are very excited that I have taken interest in their idea. We begin to formulate ideas as a group at circle time to determine the direction of our project. 

12.6

We discuss this idea with the larger group at circle time and start a web of our ideas. The Greenies express an interest in using our dramatic play area to create a “stage with curtains and make the walls look like a castle.” The children also express a wish to do their “play on a real stage” and for our families. I begin to encourage the Greenies to keep thinking about how we can achieve this. We will be going to see a production of "The Nutcracker" at a theater on our campus next week. 

12.13

We meet again to do a language chart based on the Greenies observations of the field trip to see The Nutcracker.

“After watching The Nutcracker, what ideas do you have for transforming our dramatic play space into a stage?”

KW: “We need a big space.”

JH: “We need curtains so we can change into costumes.”

EP: “There was those pictures on the walls to make it real- huge pictures of the story- you know, the back of a picture frame? Maybe that’s what held them up.”

RL: “We need ballet shirts and socks and shoes.”

SS: “We need our building bigger.”

OM: “We have to build the stuff, we’ll all have to help, we need nails and a hammer.”

BA: “We could build a castle on top of the railing.”

EB: “We can put a stage and move everything out.”

JMH: “We need a big space where we can put all of the chairs.”

SS: “I have tools at home we can build with.”

LL: “We could move EVERYTHING out of our classroom.”

OM: “Upstairs (our loft) could be the castle.”

CE: “We can do it outside when it’s summer, the climber can be the castle.”

SS: “We can put… I have power tools, too.”

JMH: “We need people to watch the show.”

We notice the children are focusing on their interests- JMH is thinking about how to accommodate an audience. SS is anxious to build a set- his language is one of construction. Using these observations I begin to introduce theatre related terms- set design, cast, crew. EP later expresses her concern- she does not want to be in the show. We talk about possible ways for her to be involved including set design- art is a language of hers. She smiles and is eager to begin to design a set which goes underway in a few days. 

Construction and the challenge of including everyone continues in Part 3.

"We are doing a show." Part 1

I love working with the emergent curriculum. If you may mot of heard of it, here is my take in a nutshell: The emergent curriculum takes the Reggio philosophy of seeing children as co-collaborators in their own learning. The teachers act as guides to sustain interests and find meaningful ways to encourage further explorations thus maximizing learning opportunities.

One way we do this is through project work or project based learning. In our circumstances the word project refers to, “an in depth investigation of a topic worth learning more about.” This topic is often child initiated or it can be part of a teacher initiated provocation. We have done many projects in our classroom, some the current families who have children in my room previously still talk about past projects. One of the magical things about projects is how they come about. As stated above they can be child or teacher initiated. A project can be started then fall apart days later- but once in a while you'll engage in a project that the children continue to invest in over weeks or months. Our class is currently in the second month of a child initiated investigation- or project. Our project is known as the "Show Project." 

It began in early December when I overheard a group of children in dramatic play talk about wanting to do a "show." I sat near by and inquired as to what they had in mind. It was a small group and clearly excited! One child, JH, spoke up and began to explain who the characters are (he used the word character! Nice!) As he went along the other children in the group confirmed or redefined what JH was trying to tell me about the characters. I imediatly decided that I needed to start writting this down. I took a pad of paper and the "characters" to a quiet space in our classroom and we sketched out what their show was about. This is what they told me: 

Prince- JH

Princess-LL

Horse- KW

The Bad Girl (later described as the Evil Queen) – OM

Judge- SS

King’s Friend- RB

LL, “The curtains open, and then…”

OM gives LL an apple, LL is dead.

JH comes on his horse and takes LL to the palace where RB lives.

RB fixes up the princess using a magic spell.

OM turns into a dragon. 

JH fights the dragon, KW helps.

After the dragon gets killed the prince and princess have a dance contest, “dance off.” The Judge picks the best dancers. He picks everybody so nobody will feel sad.

The dragon comes alive and it’s nice and dances.

The prince and the princess get married and live happily ever after.

The dragon and the horse also get married. 

Of course these themes sound familiar but it is their story and it is what they know. In the coming weeks we begin to flesh out this idea and amazing, wonderful ideas begin to come to life in the Green Room. 

To be continued.....