Puppet Show 2011 Children's Garden

Puppet Shows with Meanings

(1) Different is Cool

(2) The Case of Missing Sunflower Seeds

Dance Project Spring 2011

Three dynamic groups presented their research on three countries with creative dance and art. 
Highlight: France, Bolivia, and Mexico

France

May Day: From worker's right, protest, to May Pole Dance

Mask by Damion

Mask by Grace

Bolivia
From Highest Cities, love story, conflicting desires, to interpretive dance. 

My time is divided between...

Go! Go! 

Mexico

The History of Piñata

Comes with an impressive hand-made Piñata by Jesica (8 hours of work, use home-made glue and newspaper), a lovely folk dance, and stories on Frida Kahlo. 

Dance, Dance, Dance

This unit is about culture, geography, and dance.  Each group research a certain country and come up with a dance and a teaching unit.  It is a hard project, I have to say, however, every semester I enjoy the great outcome and success by seeing how creative my students can be!  This year, we add masks into the mix.  However, the students need to be aware of how to design and decorate their masks.  They need to properly portray and represent the essence/spirit of the culture.  Each of them show their great effort.  And, there is certainly many hidden talents in the class.  We all got a great work out that afternoon as well  

Mural Making: Remembering 9-11

Mural making is an effective way to link with social studies and history.  Based on a theme, students are able to transform learning subjects to visual presentation.  It almost always requires teamwork.  In a school setting, it is best to use pre-cut roll out paper for students to brainstorm and to create as a group.  In our example here, we divided the class into two groups: One use the whole sheet of roll out paper to construct something together in one picture; the other group, however, each member received a piece of paper (same size), each member then created his/her own interpretation on Peace, and eventually combine all eight pieces into a quilt-like mural.  
In the making of the mural, students were able to discuss as a group the meaning and  the affect of 9-11.  They talked about how peace and be restored; how life would be without wars.  Each of them shaded light on his/her feelings.  As a group, they talked about arrangements of the design elements, colors, and symbols to be put on the mural.  The whole process was heartfelt.  There was a sense of purpose within each piece.  The result was a powerful representation of how creativity helps to commemorate a historical event.  

Peace Mural Experience

Much like Picasso's Guernica, a peace mural is a place to reflect, to express, and to hope for a better world.
We as a class, did just that the other day.  Two groups using two different format to discuss the meaning of peace.  Even though we are short of time, we still come up with visual images that speak to our mind.

2009 dec 21 KVEW Project Green Runway Recycle Dress

Links to Spring 2010 Puppet Show

Thanks to Joel "Brandyn" Van Sant, A complete clips of 2010 Spring T&L 390 Players puppet shows can be seen in the following link:
Puppet Show Clips

Recyle Observation

Another assignment is to be an undercover spy: secretly note & document waste in one class. Students need to write up ways to reduce and reuse some of the materials. Estimate the cost of unnecessary wastes and how much the teacher, the school, or tax payers could have saved if certain changed have been made.

The following is Jordan's finding: 
Location: A class at WSUTC 

For my recyclable material documentation, I observed how much recyclable material is used during my X class. This is a class that utilizes a lot of paper. On one day, each of the 35-40 students was given 2 sheets of paper – one with print and one without. That is about 80 pieces of paper! To make things worse, this class period was actually relatively little paper use compared to other days. As I looked around the classroom, I saw printed paper and posters on the walls. One grouping of paper was about 40 printed sheets – one from each student – that we had put up on the wall as a previous assignment. School posters for notices and clubs were also displayed in the classroom. These were not for the class, itself, but were certainly put up and funded by the school.


Ways that we could reduce the amount of waste would be to use both sides of the paper handouts. We could simply use less paper in general. Our papers on the wall could have been eliminated as well. We could have used half-sheets of paper, or written on the board instead. Classroom posters could be replaced by something electronic or words written on the board.

Based on my estimates and observations charted below, I would estimate that the teacher/school/taxpayers would save $18.50 in this one class alone if it was paperless. Is this a possible goal? Can a class be paperless? I am not sure. Paper waste, however, needs to be reduced.

Recycle First-Self Observation

This is an assignment for us to rethink the way we handle our resources. It is a journey of slef-discovery.  It is simple, actualy.  Every student is required to document a five-day-long recount on your own household recyclable wastes.  In addition to make a chart and a graph, each student provides a list of possible ways to reuse these items.  And further estimate how much money you could have saved if you change certain living habit.

Pam's 5-day result:
Thursday- 1 cardboard tissue box, I cereal box, salad scraps and peelings, 6 napkins, multiple tissues (used), Jell-O box, 2 glass bottles, banana peels, grapefruit rinds, 1 plastic milk jug, 6 envelopes, 2 cans


Friday- 6 napkins, 2 banana peels, 2 orange rinds, 2 grapefruit rinds, salad scraps, multiple tissues, 2 water bottles, 3 plastic shopping bags, 1 newspaper, 6 glass bottles, 4 envelopes, 4 cans

Saturday- 1 plastic syrup bottle, salad scraps, plastic wrappings, 6 tin cans, multiple tissues, 1 toilet paper roll, 1 paper towel roll, gift wrap roll, 1 newspaper, 2 glass bottles, 4 envelopes

Sunday- 1 cereal box, 1 tissue box, 1 rice box, multiple tissues, 1 egg carton, 1 plastic milk jug, 1 juice carton, styrofoam, 2 glass bottles, 1 glass jar, 1 newspaper, 1 church program, 2 cans

Monday- 1 cardboard oatmeal container, 1 plastic butter tub, 2 styrofoam trays, 3 tin cans, 2 plastic bottles, 4 glass bottles, 4 envelopes, 6 cans

Tuesday- 1 cereal box, 1 tissue box, 3 envelopes, several paper flyers, salad scraps and peelings, banana peels, 1 milk jug, 4 tin cans,

We do not see these things until we make effort to force ourself to "pay attention" to something seems so trivial.

Dance Connection

How do we include movement and dance into curriculum? One direct approach is to introduce folk dances from various countries. Seems too tokenism? Well, why not introduce unique culture, tradition, and arts about the select country? And, since we are talking about the culture, why not adding some facts to highlight famous landmarks and historical events of that particular country? Thus, our multicultural dance project has born. My pre-service students come up with lesson unit that cover not only geographic, but also history, art, reading, and dance to discuss the following country: Argentina, Congo, Ghana, Portugal, and Russia. We had so much fun learning from each other in a beautiful afternoon.