Day #9: Preparing for Final Performances: Fossil Scavenger Hunts and Character Cooking Shows!

On Thursday 2/11, we started off right by doing the "Brain Dance" with the ocean theme track, which we had not practiced since the very first day of class! They did a great job with it. I was also pleased that some of the students had requests for warm-ups, such as the "Desert/Amphibian/Moon" movement medley we did last time. That lets me know that they like them, remember them, and that they help them warm up and focus. It also helped to have a motivation for the students: if they work hard and finish their work, then we can have time for more warm-up activities at the end!

Theatre Vocabulary of the Day: More Theatre Jobs

Picking up where we left off last time with theatre jobs and responsibilities, we learned about 4 more categories of jobs today in the theatre. I tell the students about these different options (we learned about the jobs of the director, stage manager, actor, and the different jobs tucked under these 3 categories last time) because it think it is important for students to know that even if they love theatre but don't like acting, there are so many other jobs to do! And I also want them to learn to quickly appreciate and acknowledge what other people do in the theatre whenever they work on a show. Some of the students are in a show right now because their school is putting on "The Lion King, Jr." in April! I can't WAIT to go see that!

The House Manager is in charge of the house (the place with the seats, where the audience sits and watches the show). He/she manages the ushers and the lobby. The ushers pass out programs, help people find their designated seats on the ticket stub, and even clean up the theater after the show (just like at a movie theater). The House Manager usually makes a speech with announcements before the show (some theaters do this), and can also help with ticket sales in the ticket office, also called box office. They take phone calls and help people become season ticket holders, switch their tickets, buy some, etc. 

The technical director oversees the contraction and placement of the lights, sound, and set. I polled the classes to see who found these topics interesting, and many students did! That made me happy. While there are separate people assigned to the positions of light designer and operator, sound designer and operator, set designer, builders, etc. But the technical director oversees all of them and makes sure they work in harmony on stage and he/she takes care of assigning all the equipment to others for the run of the show. Sometimes this person also runs lights or sound for the actual show.

The costume and make-up designers do exactly what you think they would do. :) The make-up designer also works with hair. These two designers are in charge of what the actor looks like, and must work closely together to make sure heir concepts match.

Activity: Prepare for Final Presentation

Throughout this Arts Bridge Program at South Jordan Elementary, my two classes have been completing the same activities and scenes. Since we are going to have a final performance and invite some classes to come and watch, we are going to spend the remaining days working on this one final scene, possibly throwing in some games if we have time (we will continue to have a warm-up and vocabulary though). And since the two classes are two different grades (4th and 5th grade), they have different curriculum. The Arts Bridge program is intended to teach core curriculum through the arts. I allowed the teachers to decide what topics we emphasized. This led to the creation of 2 different projects.

For Mrs. Bailey's class, she wanted to focus on fossils, which is parts of their science unit, and Utah history and geography. So I created an activity called:

4th Grade: Fossil Scavenger Hunt

Tool(s): Script, pentomino, blocks, pipe cleaners, vocabulary words, and a list of Utah counties with fossils found there

Technique: Narration and acting with props 

For this scene, the students were put into groups of 4 and were given the aforementioned tools to assemble their script. In the scene, the students are going on a scavenger hunt, yet they do not know their prize. They all hope it will be something different. Along the way, they run into a clue, which causes them to perform some sort of action in response, which leads them to their new location. Then they find the next clue, etc. They find 3 clues total, which leads them to find their prize. Then they respond in some way and end with a final action.

To summarize, they fill in the following information:
 -Locations
-Interpretations of assigned clues
-Responses
-Prize!

They were assigned some words and props, and all were given the same paper with the list of counties in Utah. Here were the instructions for what needed to be included in their scene.

* All 4 locations are different counties in Utah (use the list provided).

Your 3 clues are 1 pentomino (fossil), 3 blocks (rocks), and 3 pipe cleaners (sticks).

Somewhere in the story, use the 2 vocabulary words (written on separate paper strips).

Each group was given a bag with these props in it.

1 Pentomino

3 blocks of all different shapes and colors

3 pipe cleaners (I encouraged the students to shape these into different things. I made mine into little hoops to fit my story)



Here is their script:

SAMPLE SCENE

As always, I gave them a sample story to follow, with some visual aids to follow as I tell the story to the class before handing out the materials.

The 2 words in the script that are underlined are the required vocabulary words I assigned myself
for this scene. Also, the starts highlight my 4 different locations, all which contain a specific Utah County.

Here is the sheet they received with the information about Utah counties and the fossils contained there.
Since the students learn about ALL the counties in Utah during 4th grade, I wrote down the remaining
counties at the bottom of the page, allowing them to use those ones as well in their scene. (I received the vocabulary and county list for another 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Brewer, who teaches this unit and allowed me to use her room and this packet of information!)

Here are the visual aids that I put on the white board to help give them ideas.

These are the wishes of the 4 different kids at the beginning of the scavenger hunt.
They all hope that the prize will be something different: a million dollars, a roller coaster,
a never-ending supply of candy, and an autographed football by the Super Bowl Champions!
(Super Bowl 50 was Sunday, so I wanted the scene to feel topical. They appreciated my efforts.)

Cinderella's glass slipper, McDonald's Play Pace, a Water Park, and some hula hoops.

The prize: ice-skating with my favorite TV characters: the Peanuts! Here is how I worked in my
vocabulary: with the ending action of climbing the dinosaur at Thanksgiving Point, also tying it to
major sites in Utah!

5th Grade: Fractured Fairy Tales

Story Organizer: The Character Cooking Show!

Tool: Character Cooking Show script, mask, and fabric

Technique: Narrating and acting, twisting well-known fairy tales, plus original material

Mrs. Ormsby wants her 5th grade class to write their own fractured fairy tale scene. Since the students are a bit older than my 4th grade class, I am giving them that challenge. Yet not without a brief lecture, a sample, and a storyboarding exercise. Today, instead of just jumping in and writing right away, we first discussed the elements that make up a fairy tale. We reviewed the plot diagram and the elements that make up the beginning, middle and end: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, and falling action.

Then I presented this list of steps from beginning to end, which are all contained in well-known fairy tales.

Before presenting them with my fairy tale example, I first asked them to name a bunch of fairy tales that they know. This list proved to be very helpful for the students since many referred to it as they began writing their scenes and deciding which fairy tales to use and how to mix them all together.

I explained that the scene they would be working to create today did not need to be performed today: only written down entirely. Usually rehearsals take more than a day to do, so we are going to read these scenes to the class next time, and then they will rehearse how they are going to perform them, using a mask and fabric per group.

The character cooking show is less of a scene and more of a story organizer, breaking down all the parts that a fairy tale needs to be a strong story. I wrote it as a script so that the students can have fun reading them and acting them out if they want. But in reality, they will read them and we will give feedback and then they will write the scene out on their own, since they are 5th graders.

Cooking shows demonstrate all the ingredients needed in the recipe to make a dish. In the same way, this script demonstrates the order of all the pieces that go into their original (and/or fractured) fairy tales, and help us see where the good and struggling areas are in their story right away, before it is "cooked" or performed for their final performed. The ingredients, or elements, to the story coincide with the elements of a fairy tale pictured in my list. above

Here is the 2-page script the students were given.

Yet before I gave them their groups and let them loose to create, I read them the Brother Grimm fairytale of "The Fisherman and His Wife." I did this because their sample script features this story, and this one easily demonstrates all the elements very nicely, especially the relationships, objectives, obstacles, tactics, rising action, climax, and falling action.

There are many books with this tale in it, but I like the imagery and most of the
wording in this version by Rachel Isadora.

The fisherman and his wife live in a nasty pigsty. The wife wants a hut, and asks the husband to grant this wish by going back to the sea and asking the enchanted fish prince for it.

He goes and asks. This will happen multiple times. There is always a lot of repetition in the rising action/events in fairy tales. This one will have the same thing happen 6 times, growing each time.

She gets her hut. But that's not enough. Now she wants a stone castle.

She gets her stone castle. But now she wants them to be king and queen. The fisherman is happy with his life, but he goes and asks the fish to make HER king since she won't be happy without that title.

Then after being made king, she decides she wants more power! She wants to be emperor over all the lands!

She becomes emperor and wants even more power. She decides that she wants to be pope and demands her husband go and ask the flounder for this wish. She is getting so greedy!

Now that she is pope, she wants even more power. She wants to make the sun and moon rise! She wants to be ruler of all the universe!

The magical location for this story is the sea. It is magical because the enchanted prince lives there, and because the mood of the water and weather change to reflect the energy and mood of the wife. She is greedy and selfish and angry all the time. Check out these waves! Here's the CLIMAX: the fisherman wishes for his wife to have anything and everything she needs to be happy. The flounder tells him to return home.

When he returned (falling action), everything had gone back to normal, but his wife was content with their life and little home together. They had a stronger relationship and they were happy to live in their pigsty by the sea.
THE END.

This story was my sample script, using this story. All the elements are here and in the right order.

Then I let the students work and create, allowing them to fracture a fairy tale, meaning that they use elements and characters of other fairy tales, mix them together, and make their brand new recipe for a fairy tale (yet following the same stand ingredients/steps that I provided). 

Next time, we will present these to the class for more guidance and perspective, and then we will add the props, rehearse, and perform them on February 25, the last day of Arts Bridge. I will hopefully have time to do more fun stuff with them since their scenes will probably come together quickly. I'm so excited to see both of these classes' projects and to observe and assist with the upcoming creation process.