Days 2-3
Story Film: “The Secret Garden”
Summary:
A troubled orphan named Mary, a bedridden cousin who wants to be called Master Collins along with a country lad called Dickson discover that sharing kindness and respect can help the world to be a better place. The three friends discover a locked and abandoned garden and, through their efforts and care restore the place to a beautiful haven.
Procedures:
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1. Friday Funtastic, a puppet will introduce her film friend. After giving a brief summary of the story, she will ask the children to discover how Mary and Collins unlocked their “doors” to happiness.
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2. Following the film, discussion will center on the relationship between Mary, Collins and Dickson. “What did Mary do when Collins screamed at her? Did she give up and abandon him? Did Mary and Dickson play a part in helping Collins to regain his health and strength?
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3. Friday Funtastic complains about his dismal surroundings inside his bag. This leads into a discussion about unhappy feelings in the children’s lives. The puppet elicits ways that may generate inner strength to overcome and cope with unpleasant circumstances.
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4. Prepare a chart and show similarities and differences between the story in the book and the film.
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5. The children will work in pairs or groups of four to discuss parts of the story that they liked or disliked. Each group will appoint a recorder and a reporter to give their results in class.
Day 5
Story Film: “Heidi”
Summary:
A kind-hearted orphan child is placed with her crusty old grandfather who lives high in the Alps of Switzerland. The child wins the affections of her grandfather and they become inseparable. Suspense fills the story as a selfish aunt kidnaps Heidi and sells her to a wealthy family. However, happiness rules once more on the mountain as Heidi helps her invalid friend, Clara, gain the courage and inner strength to walk again.
Procedures:
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1. Friday Funtastic, a puppet, will help the children locate Switzerland. The children will discover that Switzerland is about the size of Connecticut, Massachusetts and Road Island together.
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2. Show pictures from the books, Switzerland and The Alps.
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3. Friday Funtastic will help to tell the story in class.
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4. Introduce cheese making through pictures and discussion.
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5. The children will write a tall tale around the theme “Cheese and Its Holes,” then share their story in class.
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6. The children sample products of Switzerland—swiss cheese and hot chocolate.
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7. Friday Funtastic reveals her secret telling how swiss cheese gets its holes. (A special bacterial culture causing a gas bubble produces the holes in cheese. The cheese is aged from 60—90 days at a room temperature of 65 degrees.)
Days 12 & l3
Story Film: “Dumbo”
Summary:
A circus elephant is born with big ears. All the circus hands, including the elephants ridicule and harass him. A mouse called, Timothy befriends Dumbo and becomes his source of encouragement. Through the efforts of a friendly crow and his friend Timothy, Dumbo gains confidence in himself and flys as high as the flying stars of the circus.
Procedures:
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1. The children will be paired and assigned different parts of the story.
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2. Each group will make a background scene and write their part of the story.
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3. Story characters will be drawn and cut out with tabs attached.
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4. The scenes will be placed in sequence and videotaped.
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5. One child will move the character or characters along the slit in the background scene. The other child reads their part of the story.
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6. The finished project is viewed in class.
After School Program
The After School Program meets for six to eight weeks, one day a week for an hour and half session. Children sign up for this program with their parents’ permission. They are chosen on a first come basis until the enrollment reaches approximately fifteen children.
The session will begin with an introduction to vocabulary words connected to making movies. Gwen Cherrell’s book
How Movies Are Made
will be used as a resource for looking at pictures about the movie industry. The children will learn that the set determines how the movie will look on the screen. The Art Director begins with painted drawings before the sets are constructed by carpenters and painters. The Director will decide how the story is told while working with the actors during rehearsals. The actors become the characters in the story that is being told on the movie screen. Costumes that are the clothes worn by the actors help to make up the characters in the story. Make-up and hairdressing also help to identify characters. For example, a clown at a party is immediately identified by his clothes and make-up or an elderly lady by her hair style and wrinkled skin. The lens of the camera must be properly focused so that the shooting, (i.e. the photography) will be successful. The children will be given the opportunity to view their classmates through a video camera and watch the lens focus for filming.
As the children are being videotaped, they will use creative dramatics to portray actions or show character traits. For example, I might ask the children to show me a very tall person or object. Another example might be to think about putting oneself in a box. Perhaps they could think of a nice, tall, skinny box. Then I will tell them to break out of the box and ask them to explain how they did it. Climbing stairs, pulling ropes, opening gifts, etc. are all examples of creative dramatics that I will use during this session. Character traits can be developed by showing angry and sad faces and then freezing the expression so other classmates can see and evaluate the trait. The children will relate either a make-believe event or real experience related to their expressions.
The following sessions will be used for rehearsal time for videotaping a school-wide production on stage. In addition, background scenery and simple costumes will be worked on during these sessions. The art teacher, parents and the children will collaborate in designing the set and making the costumes.
A story will be chosen that was written during creative writing in the regular classroom. Either the class or I will help to expand the story and prepare it for a school-wide play production. One such example that follows was written by first grader. Jermaine Lewis and expanded by his classmates. The title of his story was “Slide the Rabbit.” The theme for writing the story revolved around a tall tale involving a rabbit who got into a difficult situation and how he escaped.
“Slide The Rabbit”
By Jermaine Lewis and the first grade class
Once upon a time there was a rabbit whose name was Slide. He lived in the forest in a hole in the ground. His hole was very special. He had his own little bed. In his kitchen there was lots of kitchen stuff like pots and pans, chairs and a table. His mother’s name was Dorothy Rabbit.
One day, Slide wanted to go to the park. His mother told him to be careful because Auntie Flipper Rabbit had seen the big bad wolf nearby. The swing was Slide’s favorite place to be in the park. He loved to see how high he could go.
Slide was having a great time on the swing. He was going higher than he had ever gone before. All at once he looked down and to his surprise he thought he saw a bush moving. Slide was scared because he had never seen a bush move. He decided that he would stop the swing and go home. However, before he could get off the swing, the big bad wolf was in front of him. He told Slide to get off the swing. Then he grabbed Slide and took him to his cave deep in the woods.
The wolf tied up Slide. Then he got a big pot of boiling water and told Slide that he was going to make rabbit stew. He began to collect things for his rabbit stew like carrots, onions, tomatoes, celery, back-eyed peas, peanuts, cabbage, watermelon and potatoes. Each time he dropped something in the pot of boiling water, he smacked his lips and looked at Slide.
Meanwhile Slide’s mother, Dorothy Rabbit was worried because Slide did not come home for lunch. She went to the park to look for Slide. She did not see Slide but she saw the wolf’s tracks and followed them to the cave. At the cave she saw Slide tied up and the wolf making the rabbit stew.
Dorothy Rabbit ran into the cave and jumped onto the wolf shouting, “I’m going to eat you up.” The wolf thought it was Meanie the big bad bear. He yelled pushing Dorothy Rabbit to the ground and ran away. Nobody has seen him since. However, whenever the rabbit family hears the wind howl at night, they tell their children that the wolf is crying because he lost his rabbit stew.
