Today was our first day at Heights Middle School. It was fun to meet the kids we will be working with for the next couple of weeks. It was interesting to see the way each class interacted with and responded to "Maxime the French Chef." The students in Ms. Evans' class were not as quick to "play along" and use their imaginations, where as the students in Ms. Martin's class quickly got on the boat and seemed to enjoy the imaginative play. I assume that this is partly to do with the difference in mentalities between the two class. From my experience the older we get the less we seem to our imaginations. I also noticed that the students in Ms. Evans' class seemed to look around at the other students and play off of each other more. They acted like most kids their age and seemed afraid of what the others thought of them and their responses.
We had a lot of fun with the kids today. The kids in Mrs. Evan's seemed to take well to "The Generals," and I was surprised how quickly they jumped in and read the poem with us. I can see the benefit of performing for them and letting them see how much fun it can be to read and interpret poetry. Definitely more fun than simply reading it. The kids in Mrs. Martin's class also seemed to enjoy Grandma Bear. Most of them are still rather shy, but hopefully we can help them come out of their shells. Mrs. Martin's class seemed to enjoy the poetry song more than Mrs. Evan's class.
Now that the kids have had a little more exposure to poetry, they seem to be more attentive and understand what we are trying to teach them. They seem to really enjoy watching us perform the new poems. The students seem to be getting used to us being around. There are still some students who are a little resistant to the idea of performing a poem, but hopefully that will change once they get to work on some poems on their own. In Mrs. Evan's class we started really working with some of the students and the poems that they think they want to do for the performance on March 15th. We still have a couple more poems to show them, but some of them have really taken to already performed poems and seem to be excited about them.
We were unable to attend Heights last week because of a snow day. Our time is quickly running out, to help the students with their poems and to get them ready before our performance date. We presented the final poetry selections in each of the classes today. Most of the kids in Mrs. Evan's class have chosen poems at this point, but some still needed one. In Mrs. Martin's class more students still needed poems. Luckily the students took quickly to the fun poems we presented today. We were able to help them with memorizing their poems and started getting them into the mode of acting them out. For the most part students seem to be good sports and are really trying and working hard. I've even noticed some of the students who have in the past been fairly resistant, getting involved and actually trying to learn their poems. It was a very nice surprise. It's amazing what can happen you show a child that you believe in them.
I as really impressed at how prepared the students were for the dress rehearsal today. I was a little worried because our time with the students felt a little short and fast paced, and feared that they wouldn't have the time needed to be well prepared. It was a nice surprise to see their efforts pay off and translated into success. They were all well prepared, and it was a lot of fun watching them perform. I'm really looking forward to next week.
Today was the BIG DAY! We were at Mesa Verde today, to finally put on the big show I was so proud of the Heights students! You could tell they were a little nervous but over all I feel that they did wonderful job presenting their poems to the Mesa Verde students. Things didn't always turn out exactly as planned, due to absences, nervousness, and technical glitches. It was a bummer that the computer projection aspects did not work, but thats life. Even without them the show was a success. The Mesa Verde students seemed to really enjoy the performance. They laughed and were enraptured by the fun and silly interpretations of the poems. I really enjoyed the opportunity we had to perform for and interact with the elementary students as well. I loved their reactions to the James and the Giant Peach poem. They were so funny when they would say "eww," "yuck!," and "gross" to the food items. And what little kids don't like candy.... You'd think they were at a parade. So Fun! I was extremely proud of the students that stepped up and filled the rolls of those students who were absent. They did what was necessary to make the performance a success.