Budding Thespians

I’m not even sure how we got to this but I guess this is what home Schooling is all about. We are putting on a play, maybe, if Eli wants to on the day.

We have been looking at Aboriginal art and culture and as part of this unit I read Tales of My Grandmother’s Dreamtime to the kids. This book is a collection of short fables from the Aboriginal Dreamtime. Most end badly for the protagonist as all good life lessons usually do. In fact I think the majority of characters in this book get eaten by a crocodile with the exception of three vain animals who dress up in bright colours and get killed by humans. We also went to see a play in which puppetry was used and at the same time as all of this the kids have gotten totally hooked on the TV show Merlin. Ok so they don’t all fit together, or do they???

Alanah is cluey, she wont just except things she has to know why and how. So we have been bombarded with questions about how puppets are made which led to questions about Merlin and all the special effect on the show. She has become very curious about the whole production process, how they made the special effects, how they know what the character should look like. As I was reading through the book at the time I used it as an example talking to them about what we would need to do if we wanted to turn the story into a play or a movie. Then of course they wanted to do it. So I let them chose a story, Eli wanted “the one where they all end up dead” but Alanah found the only story in the whole book where no one dies and insisted we do that one.

I got them to design their costumes on paper first and think about how they would be made. Then we began our costume workshop mostly involving paint and Papier–mâché. These photos are of the creation of the costumes I’ll post some later on with them wearing the finished product.

IN OTHER NEWS: Sabrina has learnt to survive on absolutely no sleep at all. She is going to make medical history by being the only child to remain teething for the rest of her life. And I have mastered the skill of holding my hair together in a bun with the aid of a single HB pencil.