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Greetings and welcome to my page. My name is Rebbecca, I am a mom of two and a preschool teacher in southwestern Virginia. I have had the blessing of working in a Reggio Emilia inspired center for nearly 10 years, with the Greenies (my students) for 7 of the last 10 years. Our emergent curriculum and play based learning approach has changed the way I think about working with children. I am looking forward to sharing my inspirations, reflections and stories with you. So glad you're here!

“If you are a dreamer,come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a hoper, a prayer, a magic-bean-buyer. If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire, for we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!” Shel Silverstein


Tuesday, January 31, 2012

"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.

4 comments:

  1. It's fascinating to read some of the details about the "grass-roots" development of the show. Can't wait to see it!

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  2. Ah ha! You are getting the behind the scenes tour I hope to share with everyone next week before the show. The chance to do such an in-depth project is rare, I am really reveling in it. It brings out the teacher researcher in me :) Thanks Linsey!

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  3. I am really impressed with your writing skills as well as with the layout on your blog. Is this a paid theme or did you modify it yourself? Either way keep up the excellent quality writing, it’s rare to see a great blog like this one today..
    Mirror with Silver Frame - coaster 901701

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  4. Thanks Louise! No, I don't get paid to do this (though I would not object!) I felt inspired by other teacher bloggers like Teacher Tom and wanted to share my stories as well. There are so many wonderful things that happen in EC classrooms, we can learn so much from each other. As for the layout of this blog- I can't remember how I got this format, I think it was a basic option through blogger.com.

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