Impatience!

I haven't even finished my planning for this Mantle, but I couldn't help making a start with the class. It is week 4 already, and the children have had their first EMR session, including snorkeling in the school pool. Most of our reading has been based on marine life, and we have written factual reports on marine worms, with some pretty impressive diagrams as well. This is only because we need some background knowledge before our trip to the Reotahi Marine Reserve. So I started...
Initially, we talked about drama, and read the Drama Contract that Leslee provided. We didn't sign it, we just talked about each bullet point and what it meant. The children were all in agreement, and I trust them to take it seriously and follow the rules. I guess I am very lucky having year 5 and 6 kids, you can reason with them and remind them when things don't go to plan.
I don't know if I got right, I know we are meant to work on our "hook" and this would lead us in but I just couldn't help myself. I suppose I will learn as I go.
Anyway, I asked them to remember the day when their first book was released as a bestseller. Pretty cool, they not only talked about the "book" but started to create some elaborate stories relating to that time. I had children who were accomplished authors and illustrators who had won book awards, and queues of people had lined up on the day it came out in the bookshops to buy a copy. What was super cool was that every single person in my class was happy to share.
I figured a publishing company would be a great business, so I mentioned what a hassle it was dealing with some publishers and how much money they must make out of us. And of course, the kids bought into it and now we are busy designing our publishing company. It is pretty flash actually. 2 stories with many offices, a luxury suite for when we work late because we are so inspired and we can't be bothered going home, several pools and a spa, a helipad, lounges, conference rooms, storage rooms and a diamond studded toilet, plus lots more! Lucky we are wealthy authors!
We are also thinking about a suitable name for our company, this decision is not something we want to make hastily, so it is requiring several days and lots of thought. Speaking of names, we thought it would be good to have a copy of each person's CV, just for the records. Heaps of fun inventing a past, and even more fun coming up with pseudonyms! I think I am having as much fun pretending as the children. And guess what my name ended up being? ... Mildred!

A Quick Update

Two things. First, I have been trying to plan for my Mantle to fit with Science (living world) and make it link with EMR (Experiencing Marine Reserves) and I keep changing it! I lie, I only changed it once. But it's still incomplete and I guess it will change as I go. I originally planned to set up an advertising agency, and the commission would be to create an ad for kelp shampoo, and the client would be a health and beauty company, and they would MOW the kelp forests for kelp and this would upset the balance of things in the ocean. But then I tried planning a different way after being shown at staff meeting. And now I have a publishing company (but they write and illustrate as well as publish books) and the client is a company like Learning Media, and I am thinking the commission will be something along the lines of writing an accurate, culturally sensitive picture book to educate children about the effects of overfishing, and the book must appeal to primary school aged children.
And my theme is kina! I remember my nana, when I was a kid. She would find kina, crack them open, and eat them there on the beach. I have been vegetarian all my life, so I just thought it was gross, but I was happy to have the shells! Is that like liking leather? From a dead cow? I miss nana. Anyway, kina barrens are created under the ocean when the kina eat all the kelp. Overpopulation occurs when no one eats the kina, so when snapper and rock lobsters are taken from the beach then the kina get a bit out of control. I think I have a lot to work with here, and I am still at the pre planning stage but I sure am thinking a lot! And waffling... sorry, gosh I do go on once I start. I don't do that in real life!
Second. Today we had to bring along some drama games to share for staff meeting. I have tried out a few. I really like www.dramaresources for ideas, and also www.bbbpress.com. So I am trying out the ones I think look fun and relevant, and getting feedback from the class as we go. So far we have tried: Half a Minute Handshake, noisy but fun, and it's only 30 seconds of loudness. Grandma's Footsteps, which they adapted and added putting on jandals, hat and cardi, then changed again because of lack of space in the classroom, and so went up in groups.  This was similar in a way to Keeper of the Keys. Follow Your Nose was a bit weird, maybe we will try it again later, it was kind of more like a dance thing, with space and movement... I don't know. Mirror was super cool, we tried it in pairs and we tried it in fours, and we all really liked it. Morph the Movement was fun but we need to try it again and make smaller changes each time a new person takes over.
Now I am reading this, wondering how the heck I can talk so much (typing with 2 fingers no less!) and thinking maybe I should make those two website into links. But I am pretty sure anyone who is into drama is already going to know about them.

Completing the Drama

Yesterday the children and I were keen to complete the lesson. I am really impressed with how well it all went. We got back into the drama by using freeze frames of events leading up to the end of the story, and finished up by following the plan. I have to read up about hot seating, it seemed successful, but I am not sure that we did it quite right!
The final part involved present day tourists, and creating freeze frames of a statue with an inscription explaining why the lake rises and falls. Some of the inscriptions were amazing! My class are great at summarising! The statues were definitely original though, some groups chose to depict Matau, dead, which was ... interesting.
I found this resource super helpful and I am ready to attempt something else now.
Today we tried the Trading Game. The children had to choose a Habit of Mind for me to work on as my goal for the term. I decided on this as they have their own Habits of Mind goals and it was good to go over what they all mean. Anyway, the game went very well, only 3 out of the 22 children stuck with the same idea throughout the game, and it was really funny watching them trade ideas really quietly because they didn't want me to hear their reasons for setting their chosen goals for me. In the end they had narrowed it right down to 2 main goals. One was Finding Humour, and the reason was because I need to take them out for more games! And the other was Thinking About Thinking, but they couldn't explain their reasoning. Oh yeah, and 1 child wanted me to manage my impulsivity because I always swing on my chair and I never keep still. I guess I'd best get onto a little reminder about what each Habit of Mind means and what it might look like. Perhaps I can incorporate a bit of drama into that learning :)

Wakatipu's Giant

 Chorus of Movement, creating Lake Wakatipu with string, breathing as one and creating a heartbeat

 Rituals with Teacher in Role - the chief and Manata beg Matakauri not to go

 Villagers make a greenstone axe as a weapon for the journey

 Matakauri's friends refuse to go with him, but give him gifts of greenstone for luck and to keep him safe

Wall of Thought - children speak Matakauri's thoughts as he heads off to slay Matau

It wasn't a big Drama

I am just going to write about today, because this is important, I think. I am not a confident actor, and I tend to struggle with pretending to be someone else, so Teacher in Role stuff is a little bit scary for me. I spent much time thinking about drama games and checking out things online, trying to find some ideas that I would feel comfortable with and that would fit with what I was doing in class. And it just so happened that I came across a drama lesson plan, on the TKI site of all places, that was absolutely perfect. It is a plan to use with Matau - the Giant of Wakatipu (Maori Myth). I love Maori myths and legends, and the names weren't too difficult to pronounce. I actually checked with Pam first- how to pronounce the names. Anyway, this was good for me because I usually inform the children of how I have trouble with correct pronunciation of Maori, but for the first time ever, I ACTED like I knew what I was saying and I am really proud of myself for getting that bit right! That wasn't the drama bit though. The plan uses process drama throughout, and every single part of the plan was there for me, step by step! If you're online and you hover the cursor over each thing, like teacher in role, or freeze frame, or spoken thoughts, it tells you exactly what it means. So I printed it off and got the book and read the plan a million times so that I knew what to do... and today I did it with my class, and it was superb! We did every single thing in the plan, the children gained confidence, I gained confidence, and by the end of the day we had some very excellent things happening. The children were easily able to take on a variety of roles, and from the comments they made, were able to see things from many perspectives. It was just gorgeous!
I might put a couple of photos on of the children in their various roles. We hadn't time to complete the story/ drama, and will do so tomorrow. But we did reflect at the end of today and the class shared their ideas and feelings about what we have done so far, and all of the comments were very positive. I am so pleased, at least now I know that I can do this :)