On May 21, 2013, 5th Grade did something they’d been working up to all year–they performed a musical that they had planned, written, choreographed, staged, costumed, and acted in!  It began as a seed of an idea early in the school year, and blossomed into something bigger better than we could have even imagined.  They really did a stellar job.  But not on their own: our amazingly fabulous music teacher, Mrs. Kesler, was there every step of the way helping them make their dream a reality.

The general premise was of a 5th grade class who was learning to write autobiographies in Writer’s Workshop and the scenes were the memories they came up with to write in their pieces.  A couple of them were “real-life”, like reminiscing about Missouri Day and Box Town, but the other two vignettes twisted truth a little further: one was about a visit one day in kindergarten from a leprechaun and his minions that involved an arm wrestle over some chocolate “gold”, and the other was a crazy escapade to Cahokia Mounds that involved lots of dancing.  It was a great example of what can happen when you let kids run with their ideas, focus on their passions and do what is often “off limits.”  Trusting them with the plan and the execution could have been hard for some, but I love that Mrs. Kesler knew that that was the right thing to do in order to really make it “theirs.”  And theirs it was.

(Wish I had more pictures of it–we really did work for almost 9 months on it.  But I only have pictures from the performance.  Boo. 😦 )

Backstage on performance night with Jernandra, Sophia and Anna C. They were portraying kindergarteners in the scene with the leprechaun. I was Mrs. Bearden (quite a stretch, huh?)

The art room worked as the “green room” for kids to wait in when they weren’t on stage. We had a Skype connection worked up between the gym and this room so we could see what was going on on stage. Teachers and students were in charge of following the script to help actors know when they needed to go over for their next scene. This was really a genius idea that worked out SUPER well!

Aiden and Don were stage managers and did an amazing job of making sure it all went down as it should. They were in charge of lights, music and all other stage cues to keep us on track. Definitely the two best guys for the job!

We call these next two pictures “The Many Hats of Mrs. Hong” because aside from being a fabulous teacher, she showed her skills in make-up…

…and hair, as well. Is there anything she can’t do? I don’t think so. 🙂

Group pic after the performance

  Have you ever taken on a huge project like this one?  How did it go?  What did you learn?