Thursday, October 10, 2019

10/11/2019

The Show Must Go On

Earlier in the week we introduced the children to the concept of CHOREOGRAPHY. We shared the definition and image of choreography notes found on Wikipedia, relating it to some of the drawings the children had done in planning out possible poses for the shadow ballet. We also used it to provoke the children's thinking further about intentional planning in regards to the design of their show.

Maren was excited about her unicorn shadow.

As is often the case for some children, giving time to allow new concepts to ruminate can bring about deeper understanding over time. This seemed to be the case for Maren as on her first day with the idea she chose mostly to observe the dancing. She took photos, wrote "notes," and created some backgrounds for the shadow ballet, but she wasn't ready yet to perform. However, today she arrived to KW with a full plan in place. Wearing her unicorn headband, she announced that she, Lane, Evelyn, and Grace David would perform a Unicorn Dance. When it came time to perform she confidently announced they would use the "My Little Pony music" and she had thoughts for her dancing partners on how they would dance the show.

Here is a small discussion at meeting about the children's plans for the story of their shadow dances, to which each child followed through on their plan when it came time to perform:

Q: We have been talking about our ideas for the story of our shadow ballet. Do you have any ideas to add today?
Maren and Lane: Unicorn Dance!
Lane: It's gonna be a story and it's gonna be about two unicorns and they're dancing.
Sally: We could dance in our own way. You can do whatever you want.
Sam: I'm gonna make a dinosaur movie.

Continued Shadow Show Explorations

Children took on a variety of roles as they worked:

dancer
photographer
note-taker
set designer
choreographer

While the children worked in these roles, they communicated more often and more intentionally than we had seen previously about their plans: how the children should move, when they noticed "your shadow is blocking my shadow," where to be in relation to the screen and light, etc.