Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like preperation

Our big finale for Elk Meadows was to put on a reading of "Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like". 

The second to last week we did a lesson that introduced the story and they paired up to create different dragons after I showed them the slide show seen below of many different dragons.

  

This is to introduce the idea that there are many different kinds of dragons. 

The reading went so well! We had two different casts and Cathy Douglas also made costumes for the reading and seen below you can see how they also created some wonderful sets!

Final Performance

This was such an amazing performance and I was so impressed by the showmanship of all the students. Everyone did such a great job and the audience enjoyed the show very much. I was especially glad my professor, Teresa Love and our Drama in the Classroom class, could all be there together and they could give me feed back as to what they were able to see. Teresa pointed out that she saw real camaraderie and friendship and kindness among the students of Mr. Loree's class. He did an amazing job casting the show. He is a very gifted teacher and I loved working with him. 

Sierra Bonita

I've been to Sierra Bonita's Mr. Loreen's 6th grade class a few times.

The first time was a lesson about the different parts of a story. Very similar to the lesson I taught at Elk Meadows.

The second visit was to teach about heroes. It seemed like the students were loosing interest. I had them do small group activities and also come up and write on the board some of the adjectives they came up with in their groups that describe a hero.

For our third lesson, I knew I had to shake things up. I used the THE AMISTAD SLAVE REVOLT: A Process Drama Exploration lesson plan and it was powerful. We ended the lesson with a CHORAL READING of Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream Speech. And it was super awesome.

At the beginning of the lesson, to transition from HEROES to such a heavy topic, I read "Testing the Ice, a True Story about Jackie Robinson" and this worked quite nicely. I love this book.  Also Mr. Loreen reminded them that there are some subjects were they will need to be mature.
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/testing-ice#cart/cleanup

Outside BYU library.

I think before reading the book, we played the game outlined in the lesson where each student has a label on their back and every must treat them like that label to help them figure out and guess what it could be.

Here is the link to these first three lessons.
We did Storytelling Lesson #1 by Teresa Love and Storytelling Lesson #2 by Teresa Love and then Amistrad Slave Revolt.

Fourth visit was used as a reward and we played many fun theater games. From one of my favorite books...

In front of Sierra Bonita Elementary School.

Last week was the fifth visit were we talked about the script of the play they are going to perform.

Today we read through the script, "The Girl That Was Different". I wanted them to each improvise a line after they said each line in the script. My directions I guess were not as clear as they needed to be and this fell by the way side.

I also talked a bit about the 4 different voice inflections.

And share my movie extra experience getting to work on the "Truman Show" to teach them how powerful music can be to add emotion. I used the last track from the movie sound track of...



...in a couple spots when reading through the script. It was great.  Looking forward to next week.

Last Visit to Elk Meadows

The last visit to Elk Meadows was Feb. 10, 2014. Mrs. Douglas had made costumes and the kids had created some back drops for the scenery for our reading and performing of "Everyone Knows What a Dragon Looks Like".  It turned out so great.  Mrs. Douglas had also assigned who would be each part. We had a cast one and cast two to give everyone a chance to play some parts in the story. All of the students were very familiar with their lines - and some were even memorized.

We did the "Story Telling Lessons" #5 and #6 to finish our program there at Elk Meadows that can be found here:   http://education.byu.edu/arts/lessons/drama

when we did lesson #4 about the "fool" role in stories, I used these pictures:

Storytelling Lesson #2

Heroes Overcome Obstacles

Overview: 

Stories of “Good Guys” achieving success against great odds, achieving definitive victory against those odds, seem to be particularly satisfying to the human soul.  Whether the hero is likely or unlikely, with supernatural powers or only luck, he or she, at some point, must overcome an obstacle.  The obstacle must be overcome by strength and/or ingenuity. 

This is the ongoing struggle that human beings, and perhaps especially children, face. A good Hero story inspires us to be valiant in overcoming our own obstacles.

Materials: 

Poster or projections of heroes, real and fictional, some readily recognizable, others obscure.  Include a variety of ethnic and genders, current and historical heroes. Group the fictional heroes together and the nonfictional heroes together.  You will need the group of fictional heroes for Lesson Three.

·         Horton Hatches the Egg, by Dr. Suess, Random House, New York, 1968; or other “Hero” story, teacher’s choice.

·         White board and markers

Vocabulary:  (as is appropriate for grade level)

Fictional, real, hero, heroine, protagonist, main character, “good guy”

Objectives:

·         Students will differentiate between pictures (names) of real and fictional heroes.

·         Students will participate in pantomime of large physical obstacle.

·         Students will generate a list of ways to overcome the pantomimed obstacle.

·         Students will participate in sound and motion during telling of the Hero story.

Procedure:

1.    Establish pantomime of an obstacle. For example, you might say, “We’re going to pretend for a little while.  Loook!  Look at this huge rock that’s right in front of me.  It’s so tall I don’t know how I can get over it.  It’s so wide I don’t see how I can get around it.  What a problem! (Push and pull the obstacle)  I just can’t seem to move this obstacle, this problem, at all.  Let’s call this big problem an obstacle.  Whew! I’m tired.  Can anyone think of a way I can get on the other side of this obstacle?” 

2.    Choose a student to describe his way of solving the problem.  Then invite the student up to demonstrate his idea.  Work with him as a partner in the pantomime.  For example, if a student’s solution is to use a ladder and climb over the top, volunteer to help him get the pantomimed ladder, and climb up, before or after the student.  Once you are both on the other side of the obstacle, thank the child profusely.  Ask him to “give me five”, or a similar victory ritual.  Then say to the child “Hooray!”  You overcame the obstacle!  You’re my hero!”

3.    Repeat step #2 at least two more times, with alternate ways of overcoming the obstacle. 

4.    Using the white board, write ”Good guys”.  Ask students if it is reasonable to describe all the pictured heroes as “good guys”.  Write the word “hero” on the board.  Share with students the fact that this is another term to describe “good guys”.

5.    Write, “Heroes overcome obstacles.”   Ask for an example from the poster of a hero who overcame an obstacle.  Keep equating “solving a big problem”, with “overcoming an obstacle.  Wrote names of the various heroes on the board.  Asked children to identify which are fictional, and which are real life heroes.  

 

6.     Also, wrote on the board the words heroine, and protagonist.  Told students that these are also words that often describe the main character in a story.  This character is someone who overcomes an obstacle. (Heroine describes a female hero.)

7.    Announced to students that you have a story to share about a hero.  Told them there will be places during the story for the audience to help the storyteller.

8.    Read Horton Hatches the Egg, potential places for the audience to join in the dramatic story telling, from their seats, could be as follows (Note: Don’t forget to use the illustrations as clues to help children infer what they can add to the story through their sound and motion stories):

·         Invite the students to make the sound and motions of a storm during” It poured and it lightninged! It thundered!  It rumbled!”

·         “Soon it was Autumn. The leaves blew away.”  Sound of wind, motion of leaves flying.

·         “…and said with a sneeze,”  Invite students to sneeze as Horton would sneeze.

·         “They taunted. They teased him.”   Invite students to make “Nyaaa, nyaaa, nyaaa, nyaa, nyaa” or other playground teasing noises.

·         “He held his head high, and he threw out his chest…” Invite students to do the same taking Horton’s stance.

·         “Rolling and tossing and splashed by the spray…” Invite students to make the sounds and motion of the ocean.

·         Invite students to make the appropriate sounds during “A thumping!  A bumping!  A wild alive scratching!”

·         Invite students to make the appropriate sound after “…the egg burst apart!”

·         Invite students to repeat everything the crowd says, such as “What’s this all about…?” And ”My goodness!  May gracious!” and “My word!  It’s something brand new!  It’s an elephant-bird!”

·         “And they sent him home happy…” allow students to provide “100%!”

9.    Review how this fictional character, Horton, was the hero of the story, by helping students to identify the obstacle Horton overcame.  You might want to compare his behavior to Mayzie’s or the hunters’ behavior.

Assessment: 

·         Were students able to identify fictional and nonfictional heroes?

·         Did students participate in the dramatic play of the Obstacle pantomime, including offering ways in which to overcome the obstacle?

·         Did the students participate, as cued, using sound and motion during the Hero story?

Integration/Correlation/Extension/Modification

·         Invite students to write or draw a picture of a story in which they, themselves, are the heroes.  The obstacle the hero overcomes should be clearly identifiable.

·         Invite students to read Horton Hears a Who, also by Dr. Suess.  Encourage them to find places in which the audience could add sound and motion to aide the storyteller in the sharing of the story.

·         Ask students to think of more unlikely heroes in unusual situations.  (A lion protecting a lamb, a mouse helping a cat,  a fisherman helping a fish to escape, a kindergartner saving a sixth grader, etc.)

·         Concentrate on the concept of print hints that help the reader understand how Dr. Suess would like the words to sound in read aloud.  Point out the italics and bold print, the rhythm and rhymes, the punctuation marks, etc. which can help the reader make creative choices in vocal expression such as tone, timber, tempo, dynamics, word color, etc.  have volunteers work on different parts of the story to present to their classmates.

·         For older students:  Ask students to represent a nonfictional hero’s obstacle in a visual art medium.  (For example, a student might draw a picture of Jackie Robinson jumping over a hurdle representing racism.)  Discuss how the hero story, told in words, can be translated into visual art.

·         For older students:  The hero of a story is most often the protagonist of a story.  However, sometimes he/she is not.  Challenge students to take a hero story, and without changing the main plot points of the story make another character the protagonist.  Tell the story from another character’s point of view.

This week's lesson is about PANTOMIME and at the end of the class, everyone will have a chance to "act out" with pantomime our science vocabulary words to get a few classmates to guess what the word is.

1)  We will start class with the 1st chapter from a book all about the Apollo 11 mission.

2a) (optional) I was hoping to introduce PANTOMIME with showing this super funny 30 sec commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXuKc_TjUhw

2b)  We will briefly talk about pantomime and then get up 

and play a game called "Red Ball Thank You" - in this game we start with a red ball while we stand in a big circle. When passing the imaginary red ball, we must first make eye contact with who you want to pass the ball to, say their name along with the color of the ball. The person receiving the ball will say, "Red ball thank you." 

After we play that a little bit, we'll switch to another game called 

3) "Sparkle Ball" where they will all have a chance to practice spelling our 8 vocabulary words.

This is with an actual ball and with each pass of the real ball, the next letter of the word is said.

4) We'll have a seat and have a more in depth lesson on PANTOMIME to get ready for...

...Lastly,

the big finale, we will break into three groups of about 8 students each as we 

jump back up to each get, folded up on small paper, one of the vocabulary words. 

5) We will use PANTOMIME to get the rest of the small group to figure out/guess what each word is.

Yesterday we reviewed the parts of a story and the three ways actors add information to a scene (verbally, emotionally, and space work) before I read our nonfiction book, "On a Beam of Light, a Story of Albert Einstein" click HERE for review. I wanted them to listen for the different emotions and to pay attention to the different tempos I would use when reading the book. So we had a chance to talk about tempo and after reading the book also about imagination. We also talked about lasers and space travel.


After the class Becky Wallin, Cathy Douglas and I talked about getting clear on what our long term goals for the next 10 visits would be. Because next Thursday is Halloween, we will use next week for getting more specific lesson plans mapped out.  Speaking of maps, I was all over the map with the things we covered yesterday. I lacked focus but was excited about the nonfiction book I brought to share. Things were taught but for what purpose?

For our next lesson, I think we will write a story to act out using these new vocabulary words:

Appearance 
The way something looks

Axis 
A straight line about which something turns

Model 
A small copy of something

Moon 
A large object that revolves around Earth

Orbit 
The path followed by an object going around another

Revolution 
To move in an orbit while rotating around an object

Rotation 
To turn around a center point or axis (spinning)

Sphere 
A space figure that has the shape of a round ball