Final Performance

It was the big day today: the day of our final performance! And boy was it exciting! We spent a few minutes after the kids came in from recess to get their costumes on and they looked great!

And we had to take a crazy picture because why not?

The performance went really well and the parents thought their performances were darling (and pretty funny too!). It was sure fun for me to see the kids 100% focused. Something about performing in front of their parents and peers boosts their ability to listen and remember their lines!

Doug (one of my Arts Bridge mentors) came up to me afterwards and said "Are both of your classes THIS good?" He was very impressed by the kids performance and their creativity!

Another one of my favorite moments was when the boy who played the fish in the Anansi play came up to me afterwards and asked if he got to keep the fish head he made. When I told him he could, he was absolutely thrilled! He LOVED that costume. Who knew putting to pieces of posterboard together over your head in the shape of a fish could be so fun??

And now, without further ado, here are the two performances from Ms. Kawakami's 2nd grade class. Watch and see for yourself just how great these kids are!

Anansi the Spider:

The Twelve Dancing Princesses:



And the next two videos are the recordings of two of the kids' original stories. They wrote these two stories themselves!





It was a wonderful 11 weeks (or so) and I learned so much from this second grade class! I'm very sad it's over and I can't go back to their class anymore but I'm so glad I had this fantastic opportunity to work with these kids!

Thanks so much to everyone who makes the BYU Arts Bridge program possible. It has truly blessed my life and has given these students so much joy and satisfaction in their accomplishments! Theatre is a fantastic way to help students better understand core curriculum and the world in general. I sure gained a lot from this experience and I know the students did too!

Props and Final Dress Rehearsal!

That's right, today was our last rehearsal before the big performance! Woot! So we had all the kids put the final touches on their costumes, we reviewed the stories, and then went to the Kiva to practice!

Wow, there is SO MUCH SPACE in there! I'm used to working with a half of a classroom (if that) so this area was great!

I also introduced what props were to the kids and showed them some of the props we would be using. My sparkly branches were a hit!

Here are a few pictures from the Anansi dress rehearsal:

And here are a few great shots of The Twelve Dancing Princesses:

We've got a few kinks we need to work out before our performance on Wednesday, but overall I think today went very well! Our storyteller (she tells both stories) is so adorable and does a great job reading the stories for the actors to hear.

I think the costumes also turned out wonderfully and I can't wait to see what the parents say about them as well!

Week 8--Storytelling

This week I decided wanted to implement some of the feedback I got from Doug Allen when he came and observed me last week. So I started by moving the desks towards the center of the room so we would have more space on each side of the classroom to work in. I also thought this would help the kids by changing up our regular routine with something a bit different.

Once we had the desks moved, I separated the class into their two different groups. On opposite sides of the classroom I had 2 posters waiting where I instructed the children (before we separated) that we were going to write/draw the story from the following week on the poster.

I had the kids raise their hand and say what came next, and if it was right, they got to come write it on the poster (but they only had 10 seconds to do it). The rest of the group and I would count down from 10 so the kids had something to do while waiting.

Here's Ms. Kawakami's group's poster up close:

After we got the whole story on the poster, we started acting out the story and I wrote down the people who were in charge of narrating the different parts of the story.

Earlier on (before I separated them into 2 groups) I told them about a little activity we were going to do after we got done using the posters. I told them about the story behind Native American "Talking Sticks" and the traditions behind them. Basically, when someone was holding the stick, they could talk and they are the only person who could talk.

And here were our talking sticks:

PVC pipe wrapped with colorful tape

The Talking Sticks worked great, except they would've been even better if I would've used them during the poster activity. The kids needed a little more practice to solidify exactly how the talking sticks worked, and introducing it a little earlier on would've been better in making it run smoother.

Becky said that I was already improving in my authoritativeness already just since her comment from the last class so I was glad that she saw some improvement.

Today I figured out that they need some sort of a script to read from. The story is just too complicated and they need some sort of reference point for what comes when and next. So I'm going to be working on that.


Next week is costumes so we'll be putting together the costumes over Christmas break for when the students come back. I've got some good ideas and it will make the kids very excited. Stay tuned!