This year, I was given a drama elective to teach at my school. It's amazing to me how I can now incorporate my love of theatre with the students that I teach. I've always been a performer, and I was scared to death to be on the opposite side of the stage, BUT, the show must go on - and I had to teach this class...I had to teach students who had, for the most part, never seen a play on stage, let alone PERFORMED in front of people before! It was a challenge, and so much fun! I paired up with our school music teacher, and together we put a concert/performance together. Our kids learned how to sing together in a chorus and performed four songs, and they learned how to work with one another in four separate fairy tale skits. They learned how to project their voices, how to face front, how to be goofy (it was easier for some than others!), and how to have fun in the theatre/performance world. They peformed their songs and skits last Friday morning (December 10th) at the elementary charter school connected with ours for Kindergarten thru 3rd graders (there were several hundred kids in the audience), and they performed again that evening for a whole bunch of parents. They were a huge success! One skit even performed at our school assembly later on during the day. All of our performers were 7th and 8th graders (I teach all of them in my history classes) and next semester we are bringing in some of our high school students to join us too. We're going to put together a musical with songs from the fifties - should be fun! And, if things go as planned, I've been assigned to work with our school district's students on a musical theatre production that will take place at the Barn Theatre in Porterville (the oldest working community theatre in the western region of the United States!)
So, this first semester of our school year went so well, and now we're able to sit back, relax, and enjoy a fantastic winter break vacation! Yea!
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