Dogpiling

We have rethought the goal for our final performance a bit. Originally, we were going to have the kids create their own characters completely on their own. But we've realized that may be a bit much. They even had trouble/were resistant to brainstorming for occupations, animals, etc., and we think that more structure might be helpful.

So right now, our plan is to model the final performance on a story that they're familiar with (or become familiar with soon). They can pick character(s) to play from the story. They will still create props and costumes for their characters.

TODAY,

we started out with a song:

"Oh, an Austrian went yodeling
On a mountain so high
When he came across a(n) ______________
Interrupting his cry..."

And so on. They liked that a lot. The song involves movements, repetition, and an element of creativity, and they all learned the words/tune fairly quickly and were all participating at the end, even those who were resistant at first (like Ivan and Zach).

Next we revisited Modified Duck-Duck-Goose. That's also a success, and they were really starting to at least make an effort to act like the animals while chasing each other. Zach did trip over a chair, which we should have been on the lookout for.

Next, we played Numbers. That one was a little more difficult for them, because it's, well, a focus game. At first they were taking a long time to think of a number to say after theirs, but when I stopped them and encouraged them to go fast, they did better. Still, they weren't great at listening for when their own number was called, always had to be reminded.

Christina got sort of tackled after we finished that game: some of the kids were really affectionate today, and she nearly got her shirt torn off. I did my best to shoo them off of her, but let he who underestimates the power of a five-year-old's grip beware.

We had wanted to do relationship charades, but we ran out of time. (It was a crazy day -- a lot of people/volunteers there, though they weren't in the room while we were working...still, kids were getting pulled out randomly for tutoring, etc.) We asked them to tell us some of their favorite stories.

"Do you guys like to read?"

Overwhelmingly, "No!"

...Oh. "Well, do you have some books that you remember that you liked at all? Any stories at all?"

And from that, although we did get a "Clifford!" (i.e. Clifford the Big Red Dog) from Donald, we mostly got responses like "Rugrats! Family Guy! Spongebob! Power Rangers!" and so on. So it's going to be interesting to try and pick something. We had wanted their input but I don't know that we want to do a Power Rangers story for our final performance. I'd hoped they might pick some book, like Are You My Mother? or The Runaway Bunny or any one of those fantastic kids' books. Maybe I'm an odd duck for having loved books so much even at that age, but I honestly didn't expect there to be such an overwhelming, vehement, and negative reaction to the idea of storybooks. Maybe it's just "cool" to say you don't like to read.