Theatre Counts! From the Arts Education Council: "On stage, the audience sees a young person bow at the end of a theatre production. What the audience may not see: the hours of rehearsal spent preparing for this moment; their classmates poised on the catwalk shining the stage light to capture the performer’s joy; the costumers’ research, drawings, and design; the audio technician’s artful and precise balance of sound; and the stage manager creating harmony among the performers and the crew. The audience may not recognize that they are seeing the result of years of training and commitment on the part of educators to support students. Theatre education benefits are numerous and powerful and exist across student populations, age levels and learning environments." For more, click here!
From the CRPC:
"Theatre is an integral part of English language arts as well as the performing arts, so the foundation for theatre begins at birth as children develop personal communication skills. Parents and preschool and elementary teachers should encourage imaginative play and role-playing, both for their own sake and as important components of the learning process across the curriculum. All students should study creative writing, improvising and writing scripts; expressive public speaking, media literacy, theatrical production and interpretation; and other key communication skills as part of their basic K-12 language arts curriculum, and should deepen and apply these skills in formal theatre experiences under the guidance of expert theatre teachers."
4th Grade Theatre Class is the first step for us, as creators, to really get into the structure of the theatre arts. It's a big year for extra-curricular opportunities too, so we spent a bit of time on nailing down actual performance techniques. See what we're working on below!
Total Hours Per Quarter: 9
We have been getting to know each other the past few weeks! One of the fun activities that has helped us get to express ourselves and practice expressing different emotions is "Bluey" our class puppet! Sometimes we guess what Bluey is feeling or mirror his expressions!
We are learning to cooperate, demonstrate teamwork, and learn some basic acting skills through games like Shazam, Weather Freeze and Go, and Energy Ball.
Students are so excited to write! They have been asking and we are starting our writing now! First we are exploring story elements, such as characters. Learning the elements needed to create a fun and interesting script. Next students will be using their imagination to create their own script or monologue.