3th grade C - Mask Performance (2nd Trimester new class) for Xmas Musical

Interdiciplinary Project Drama (Acting and Spacing), Music (Singing) and Visual Arts (Scenerios and Props). Musical "10 in Christmas"

Interdisciplinary Project. Drama and Spanish Dept. CHIMBOMBO

Stories from other cultures: "A Promise to The Sun"

While the 1st Grade learned about all of the countries that are represented in their classroom during the Unit on Cultures, we began reading and performing a story by a Tanzanian author, Tololwa M. Mollel, entitled "A Promise to the Sun". 

In this beautiful folktale, the African savannah is suffering because of a powerful drought that has dried up the plants and rivers in the land of the birds. The birds decide to send a messenger in search of rain to replenish their plants, rivers and streams and bring their land back to it's natural state of beauty. The birds choose to send their cousin, the bat. Through this tale that is woven by it's incredible author, the ideas of this African culture creatively answer the question: "Why do bats live in caves?"

Just as stories have been passed down for centuries by tribes in many cultures, the 1st Grade sat to listen to it and using music and photos of the African plains, we were transported to the environment where the story takes place......

To learn this story, the class was split into 2 groups and would alternate playing all of the parts.

The bat wakes up the clouds, who are sleeping, to ask for help in bringing the rain back.

The students working together to become "the Sun".

The birds harvest happily on the plants and fruits that have grown, now that the rain has fallen....

When the birds show that they will not fulfill the promise they made to the Sun, the bat is dissapointed and sad....

The birds dancing during their harvest celebration!

The bat, hiding in fear of the Sun finding him and reminding him of the promise that had broken.

Now, the 1st Grade has been coloring pictures of the roles they each play, pasting these pictures onto construction paper and attaching popsicle sticks to the back to make hand puppets. This way we can perform the story through puppet theatre!

Third grade embroidery

Since most of the third graders are almost finished carving their printing blocks in order to print their mola designs, they have been learning and practicing their embroidery skills using basic stitches.  The idea is that they will be printing their mola designs on fabric and embroidering the details on them.  

Surprisingly enough, the biggest challenge so far has been threading the needles!

 

This activity is wonderful for third graders to develop their very fine motor skills.

Learning how to play a part with Kinder!

Towards the end of the Life Cycles Unit, Kinder read a story called "The Young Rooster" in Drama class. This story shares how a young rooster has to learn the job of waking up the sun every morning because his old rooster father passes away. 

The young rooster is nervous and scared and doesn't do a very good job at first. When the sun doesn't come out, all of the animals on the farm are upset and let the rooster know that he will need to crow much louder for the sun to hear.

To understand the concepts of Form, Change and Connection, the students were asked to choose the part in the story they would like to play. The parts of the characters ranged from the Sun, the clouds, the rain, the Rooster, pigs, sheep, and bulls. 

We looked at photos of the real animals that are featured in the story and we practiced how these animals move and what sounds they make, in preparation to play these parts.

Then, we began to rehearse the story several times in order to help the students learn the lines that they have to say and remember what to do when it was their turn. The students had to demonstrate different emotions based on the events taking place in the story as well as remember the "positions" they needed to be in from beginning to end.

While the Sun and the animals on the farm are asleep, the Young Roosters try to wake up the Sun for the first time....

It doesn't go very well because the clouds and the rain cover up the sky....

The other animals on the farm tell the Rooster to crow much louder because the Sun is millions of miles away!

So the animals decide to give the Roosters another chance.....

The Roosters take a deep breath and CROW!!

And it was the loudest crow ever heard in the history of roosters!

"Ohhh, what a headache!" said the Bulls

The Rooster proudly said "I was only doing my job....look see!" as the morning sun came out shining over the trees 

Sixth grade Mascarada time!

After researching the Costa Rican tradition and making connections to our own lives, we reconsidered our sketches and began turning these rounded shells into masks, using X-Acto knives to cut holes for our necks and eyes. 

Then we started to grow our masks to have the shapes we needed...  pretty soon we will finish the sculptural part and paint them.

Fifth grade impressionist painting

After appreciating Berthe Morisot's artwork and learning about perspective, we went outside to paint in plein air, just like the impressionists did.  

We continued as before to make one tight, one loose, and one impressionist drawing.  The first one was on paper, then a loose drawing on canvases before painting a first impressionist layer. 

We were very independent in creating our own colors based on our perceptions of the space before us.