But while the restoration of the power caused great weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth amongst the young'ins, it inspired me to do a little happy dance across the front of my classroom. Why? Well, besides the basic math of the situation (No Power = No Kidlets = No Fun), I was in no way excited about the prospect of trying to grade summary books in the dark.
What are summary books, you might ask? Well, they are a wonderful way for the kidlets to show their comprehension of the novel we were reading in class by writing a one page journal entry (as the main character, Charlotte, which may have caused some gender confusion issues for some of the boys in class...but we will let the counselors over at the high school worry about that in a couple of years) that summarizes the plot of each chapter and then drawing a picture that relates to one of the main details from that chapter.
As I said, they are a wonderful way for the kidlets to show their comprehension...the only problem is that I, the teacher, have to grade all of the summary books. The 22-chapters summary books. The 22-chapters summary books belonging to, roughly, 130 kidlets. And just in case you were wondering about that math...130 summary books x 22 chapters each = A teacher who can't tell if her eyes are watering from the strain of reading that much 7th grade handwriting or if she is crying because her will to live has finally been sloppily extinguished...like the birthday candle on a cake for a two year old with overactive saliva glands.
So, to counteract the slobbery, spirit-crushing effects of having to read and grade so many summary books, I made the kidlets dance like little trained monkeys for my amusement.
I divided each class into groups and then assigned each group a chapter to review. The groups got together and planned out a script, and then built their puppets. The kidlets worked very hard on their puppets...and then found great joy in killing them off in various ways. Some of the kids stuck with the plot (The bad guy did end up on the bottom of the ocean) and others decided to sacrifice accuracy points for entertainment's sake (I have read this book about 16 times now, and I don't recall Charlotte ever turning cannibal and trying to eat the sailors...)
I managed to finish grading summary books while the kidlets were busy with script-writing and puppet-building, so today I was able to sit back and enjoy the puppet shows.
And even though the scripts were well written and the puppets were well made, my favorite part was seeing the tops of their cute little heads poking out from behind the "stage".
The puppet shows ended up being a bigger production than I had anticipated. We were lucky that the seating chart was set up to allow for stadium seating...
...and a few of the groups even went so far as to arrange some special effects. For example, the group in the photo below used my strobe light and some strategically tossed baby powder to create the proper ambiance for a flash-back to events in previous chapters. Pretty creative, eh?
And speaking of creative... one group chose to end their well-scripted show with a "Charlotte Doyle Chapter 9 Wrap-Up Rap"
Including a few of the "Charlotte" puppets...who might want to look into electrolysis or laser hair removal before trying to make it big on Broadway.
So, to counteract the slobbery, spirit-crushing effects of having to read and grade so many summary books, I made the kidlets dance like little trained monkeys for my amusement.
OK, so they didn't dance and it wasn't for my amusement...well, not entirely for my amusement.
The kidlets needed to review for a test over the novel and I thought that they might have more fun doing that by recreating scenes from the story via puppets instead of doing a study guides.
And guess what? I was right!
I divided each class into groups and then assigned each group a chapter to review. The groups got together and planned out a script, and then built their puppets. The kidlets worked very hard on their puppets...and then found great joy in killing them off in various ways. Some of the kids stuck with the plot (The bad guy did end up on the bottom of the ocean) and others decided to sacrifice accuracy points for entertainment's sake (I have read this book about 16 times now, and I don't recall Charlotte ever turning cannibal and trying to eat the sailors...)
I managed to finish grading summary books while the kidlets were busy with script-writing and puppet-building, so today I was able to sit back and enjoy the puppet shows.
And even though the scripts were well written and the puppets were well made, my favorite part was seeing the tops of their cute little heads poking out from behind the "stage".
The puppet shows ended up being a bigger production than I had anticipated. We were lucky that the seating chart was set up to allow for stadium seating...
...and a few of the groups even went so far as to arrange some special effects. For example, the group in the photo below used my strobe light and some strategically tossed baby powder to create the proper ambiance for a flash-back to events in previous chapters. Pretty creative, eh?
And speaking of creative... one group chose to end their well-scripted show with a "Charlotte Doyle Chapter 9 Wrap-Up Rap"
Yo, yo, yo! People of the ocean
Come on over here and listen to this notion!
Captain J has got some guns,
Everybody hide! Everybody run!
If you don't heed,
He just might kill you and throw you in the sea!
So come over here and listen to what I'm sayin'!
I ain't even playin'.
Word!
I love my job.
Where else could I listen to farm kids rap about a novel written by a guy named Avi, or learn life changing information like, a puppets level of coolness is directly proportional to the amount of chest hair that is visible to the audience. As you can see, most of the puppets in our shows were VERY cool.
Where else could I listen to farm kids rap about a novel written by a guy named Avi, or learn life changing information like, a puppets level of coolness is directly proportional to the amount of chest hair that is visible to the audience. As you can see, most of the puppets in our shows were VERY cool.
Including a few of the "Charlotte" puppets...who might want to look into electrolysis or laser hair removal before trying to make it big on Broadway. No judgements, just a suggestion.
7 comments:
You are, as always, hilarious and creative. What a great project! Some of those sevies are very artistic.
I'm taking notes, Miss H, lots of notes, since I might be a teacher next year again. I have an interview a week from Saturday. Wish me luck.
um . . . what did they use for the chest hair? i hope none of them cut their own hair for their puppets.
i think my kids would like the puppet shows. :)
You truly have to be the BEST teacher in the world!!!
I love it!!
Now I know why Anson loved you in class. I wish there were more teachers like you for our kids. I only wish you could have been my teacher.
Sayda
PS: Did you know Bree and Travis are with child?
That was Sayda, not Anson. I didn't get out of his account.
That was Sayda, not Anson. I didn't get out of his account.
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