I generally work with the 1st and 2nd graders at school, but thanks to the wonderful theatre club I get a good dose of prepubescent 5th and 6th graders for one hour a week.
Like many of my frivolous ideas, I sort of regret starting up the theatre club. In the first place, 30 kids signed up, which is far more than I bargained for. Thank God for two other assistants who so generously offered their help. Nonetheless, it's possibly the most stressful hour of my whole week, and I always leave with sore vocal chords. The kids struggle with a lot of the activities I prepare, and when they don't struggle, they are bored.
But, they still come back every week. We've got about an 80% return rate, and I have to admit that I'm amazed. Entertaining them for the brief hour we are together is like playing a monkey puppet tied to 5,000 strings.
So yea...this week I am putting aside the improvisation games (so difficult) and the reader's theatre (so boring), and picking up KARAOKE. I know karaoke isn't really theatre per say, but I don't care. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and we gotta get creative here.
Like I hinted at, I sort of dread the theatre club, I know, I know, I really am my own worst enemy. But hey, it has its rewarding moments. The fact that the kids come back every week makes me feel pretty good in and of itself, and the truth is that we share a lot of laughs sometimes, despite the fact that things rarely ever go as planned. However, all that aside, just now making a list of "appropriate" songs for tomorrow, I experienced my greatest pleasure born out of this whole situation: I finally watched Justin Bieber in action. This is what I just now saw, I have seen the light!:
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
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Play "charades" as an activity, where each kid will have to come up with an action or thing, where they have to describe it and guess the answer in English. Buy dry beans and give them as tokens. At the end of the class, exchange their beans with skittles or m&ms ( a bean for a skittle or m&m) . They earn these by keeping quiet when others talk, when they wait for their turn, when they have the answer, etc..... You can make it competitive and put them in groups of girls and boys. Prepare the assignments of the words you wanted to act and guess, so it is easier to control the class.... I just did that in my last Spanish class and it was lots of fun.... Xoxo
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