As you may have heard by now, the Herons put on a play for the whole school on Friday about the Life Cycle of the Cicada. That's right. A culminating event…on Day 4.
They planned and wrote the play in the morning, breaking into committees to get costumes together and create the script (
Download Cicada play). The narrators studied their lines over lunch and we performed 4 times to a mix of classes in the afternoon.
To help get things going, I modeled how to lay out a group project like this. We decided together on our purpose (to teach kids about cicadas), brainstormed possibilities together (returning to our purpose when necessary — such as when we got on a chicken tangent). Based on our script decisions, we figured out what characters we'd have and what kinds of props we would need. Students volunteered to tackle each of those needs, we reviewed expectations when working independently, then we worked feverishly for a half hour to pull it together. My primary job at that point was to respond to student requests for things — garbage bags, bird costumes, green t-shirts, yellow see-through plastic…it's pretty amazing what you can find in the Prairie Creek Basement.
I helped man the lights for the first performance but then a student gently told me, "Um…Michelle, we can do that." Of course they were right. They also took over the Q and A after the first performance, asking confidently at the end of the applause, "Does anyone have any questions about cicadas or our play?" They then took turns fielding the questions. I got to stand in the background and watch them work — my favorite thing to do.
It was an exciting day and I know the students were very proud of their work. We'll reflect on Monday about what helped them be successful.
As we left the room at the end of the day one child asked me, "So…what's our next theme?" Off we go.
The Rookery 
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