• Curriculum Overview
• After School
• Events and Celebrations
• Service Learning and Partnerships
• Special Assemblies
• Mini Courses

by Meg de Moll
Oldest Group Teacher

As you may or may not know, every six weeks, each class at Rose Valley hosts an assembly for the whole school. Although the Oldest Group (5th and 6th grades) actually has not presented a skit every time, somehow it has become the expectation that we will.

Generally, these skits are student written and produced. Sometimes they loosely (sometimes very loosely) follow the structure of an existing story or folktale. Other times, these skits unwind themselves with a rhyme and reason all their own. They generally involve stealing, they always involve completely uncomplimentary and random characters, and, more often than not, they end with some kind of party or gathering where all the characters can strut their stuff one last time.

Creating these pieces can be a chaotic process. We often start by exploring the costume box. Characters or sets of characters emerge and we gather to make a list of what we have to work with. The challenge becomes how to string a story together with the odd assortment we always seem to have. This week's dramatis persona included a sheep, three witches from Macbeth, three witches not from Macbeth, a mad scientist, a bandit, a business man, a red devil and a besotted husband and wife team played by two boys.

We begin things with a little improvisation, taking turns offering ideas. This week Nate, who was dressed as a sheep, started things off by running across the stage chased by his owner. The Macbeth witches then decided to enter reciting a few lines from Shakespeare's play. When they realized that they were in the wrong play, they decided to become a part of this play by joining into the sheep chase. This general theme of chasing the sheep worked its way through all of the characters including the mad scientist who wanted the sheep for cloning purposes. We usually come up with an ending for these pieces as a whole group. In this case, we decided that the sheep should turn out to be a trick-or-treater which causes the partiers to remark, "That's right, it's Halloween!"

Through this process the kids are looking closely at what makes a story, how to create an outline and how to create dialogue. They are learning how to work together as a group which necessitates giving over one's personal agenda. They are learning about risk-taking and they are bonding. They are so very proud of the work that they accomplish here and they are so very proud of each other. It is always a thrill to see their hard work appreciated and enjoyed by their school mates across the grades!