29/10/10 - Penny

Period 1.

We discussed more ideas, as we did in Rachels lesson, we shared ideas, which were.

• Rachel - Mr Blobby

Kids character

Kids like clumsy people

Things go wrong

• Grace - Bear tales/fairy tales

Each story has a moral

'Best present' about a Little girl call charlotte

Baby is the best present

Moral at the end

• Autumn - Teddy - Story

Bad person steals teddy

Goodies set off to rescue it

Realise in the end that giving it back

• Joe

Story about a mouse called Gordon

Summer to autumn

Go into the wood to harvest stuff to make wine

All about how they work as a team

5 senses

• Leah - Characters that are strong

Shy teddy

Happy teddy

Grumpy teddy

Children's

• Chloe - nursery rhyme book

All characters go on a journey through nursery rhymes

A new characters added each nursery rhyme

On a journey to find something

• Becky -  little book of fairy tales

Ugly duckling

Bad character has to go through something to become good

• James - Christmas carols

Carol singers had lost the words and had to go and find them

AI - audience help their lines

We then got into smaller groups and talked about what we would like to do for Childrens play, discussing any ideas that had not yet been used.

I put my idea forward which was the story of The King Who Cancelled Christmas, and we decided, to make it more for children, to make the characters animals, and instead of a King, we'd have a Bear who was lonely because everyone was scared of him, so he wanted to cancel Christmas because he couldn't enjoy it. The story is the rest of the animals trying to convince the bear to have Christmas again, but they are all too scared to say anything, but the mouse, the smallest of them all, is the bravest, and finds out that the bear is lonely, not scary or mean.

We will start to plan in more detail next lesson.

27/10/10 - Rachel

We worked on our childrens plays in our groups.

I was in the group which had Sophie the Spoilt Fairy in it.

We had decided to do a short story wherein Sophie talks about all the pretty things she wants for Christmas, and how she wants to have all the presents to herself, when the presents are being passed around, she looks at them as if she wants them, her family then tell her that she has to wait for Christmas morning and that it is time for bed, Sophie then pretends to go to bed but hides behind the Christmas tree until everyone is gone. In the night, Ellie the Elf comes in to deliever presents for Santa, as she counts with the children as she puts the presents under the tree, Sophie is taking the presents away for herself. When she gets to the final present, she grabs it before Ellie has let go, so they spot each other. Sophie is suprised that Ellie is not Santa Claus and asks her who she is. Ellie introduces herself and says that Sophie is rude for stealing the presents and that she wont get anything nice unless she behaves and isn't spoilt, but Sophia doesn't listen. She then goes to bed and dreams about the presents she wants. She then wakes up and finds that everyone else has the presents she wants and she only gets a diary, there is a message inside the diary from santa, explaining that it is not how pretty she is, or the amount of clothes she has that matters, but that it's what's inside that counts, how nice she is to others, and she writes in her diary that she has learnt that it is what is inside that counts.

After performing it, we were then evalutated, we found that we needed to work the moral of the story into it slightly better, because the only way she knew that it's what's inside that counts was because Santa told her, she didn't learn it properly, and although the staging was good, we need to work on where people are when they are 'offstage' as the school we are performing in may not have somewhere we can use as backstage.

We then offered our stimuli that we had brought in, to the group we had the following:

• Sarah - How the Grinch stole Christmas - He's not evil he has just never been shown how to love/share

Great character who just needs to be taught about Christmas spirit

Nobody understands him

Flashbacks to when he was at school

Narration

Taran- Mr Men - Great characters to use in terms of learning something (Eg, Mr Messy learns to be tidy)

• Leanne - Pinocchio

Goes on a journey when he becomes a real boy

Learns not to lie

Characters: fairy - jiminy cricket - jippeto - cat - Pinocchio - Stromboli

Challenge: Nose growing, making the moral clear

• Abbi E - Barney live

Character took the bag
Took the bag so they would all follow him
Realises he had to give the bag back to make them his friends

Use Santa's bag instead of the barney bag
Use Christmas music
Animals children's friends
Jack frost as bad guy.

25/10/10 - Rachel.

Rachel's Lesson. Period 1.

We took notes for the Responding and Developing of the Childrens play:

Responding (Stimulus)

Target audience

Suitability

Imagination

Creativity

Needs of audience

Developing (Shaping Process)

Insight

Imagination

Liaison and constraints

Needs of audience

We then wrote questions for the woman from the primary school, to ask about the children and the performance area, the questions were the following:

April: What are the age ranges of our audience and will that be the case for all performances - So that we know our target audience age.

Leah: What do they already know about Christmas - So we know what we dont need to talk about and what we do.

Chloe: what TV programs do they watch - So that we know what they like to watch and what characters they like.

Abbi E: what Christmas songs do they know - We want to use songs they can sing along to.

Taran: How far can they count to and what colours do they know - So we know how much they know so that we dont try to teach them something they already know and they dont feel patronised.

Rachel: what do they find entertaining - So that we know what to include in the performances

Abbi F: Can they have sweets - So that we know if we can give them sweets as part of the performance

Grace: Subjects we need to steer away from - things that may offend or upset the children

Hayley: How long should it last to fully engage them - So that it doesnt drag on and we dont lose the audience's interest

Joe: Anything that might upsetting/scary (In the past what has proven to be ineffective) - So that we know what we should and shouldnt do to prevent the children being scared

Sarah: Any children who would get up and join in (Do you advise audience interaction) - So that we know if we can write in audience interaction or if they wouldn't like that.

Lauren: Where will we be performing (Here or there) - So that we know what to do, in terms of props, (can they be moved, ect.)

Autumn: Is there is a time that we could come and see the performance spaces - So we know what we have to work with (Is there a back stage curtain, ect.)

James: Any young people with disabilities that may affect their involvement - So we know if we should have audience involvement that they may not be able to do.

Leanne: How many will be in our audience including adults - So that we know how much room there will be and how big a crowd we will have

Becky: Are we ok filming and taking pictures - The children may want photos taken with their favourite character but some children or parents may feel uncomfortable with this.

Then we divided into three groups and were asked to work on small performances about specific things.

Group 1:

Character: Jack

Moral: Learn to share

Convention: Narration

Characteristic: Audience interaction

Group 2:

Character: Sophie the Spoilt Fairy

Moral: What's on the inside

Convention: Vocal collage

Characteristic: Exaggerated body language

Group 3:

Character: Elvis the naughty elf

Moral: True meaning of xmas

Convention: Freeze frame/thought track

Characteristic: Counting