Theater Investigation

If there's anything I've learned over the past 3 years it's that ANY topic can make for a literacy rich, joyful, challenging, engaging, and wonder-filled investigation, with plenty of opportunities to build and create along the way.  In fact, some of my favorite investigations have been our most unusual ones (spies and games and a magic door, just to name a few).  It's the kindergarteners' job to be playful five and six year olds full of curiosity and wonder, and it's my job as their teacher to figure out what interests and motivates them and help facilitate a learning journey around that big idea.  

In the process of preparing to act out a Halloween story for the other kindergarten classes (each K class chose a book to explore all week and then perform), I discovered how naturally all things theater (and storytelling) related come to this group.  In fact, the mere mention of the idea of putting on a show sparked a whole new choice time obsession in our classroom.  Not only did they spend the week preparing to act out our Halloween story, 

but they also started putting on their own shows during choice time each day.  They picked stories, collaborated, choose parts, created costumes, narrated, acted, and problem solved along the way, all with very minimal help from their teachers.

Thus, our theater investigation was born!  Such a hands-on investigation is perfect for this point in the school year before the kindergarteners have acquired many of the reading and writing skills they will use later on.

We started as we often do by thinking about what we already know about our topic...

Then we were ready to begin finding out even more.  What better place to begin investigating than our very own school theater!  We grabbed some clipboards, headed to the auditorium, and began noticing, sketching, and labeling...

After returning to the classroom we shared some of the most interesting things we had seen, and then we created a visual reminder of our visit...

Their choice time shows continued each day, and occasionally they even carried over into recess play...

Sometimes it was just as much fun being in the audience!

As we reflected on our visit to the theater we began wondering about so many of the things we had seen...

So we started learning about some of the different ways we could find out the answers to our questions...

This particular investigation lent itself to learning via looking and thinking and learning from experts. So, we started looking for some experts.  Mr. Russell was the perfect person to help us learn about how the scenery gets made...

And Ms. Mathieson was the perfect expert to answer our questions about the tech room...

Ms. Kingsley took us on a behind the scenes tour during Performing Arts one day to answer a few more of our questions about costumes and the green room and such.  The kiddos were especially surprised to find out the green room isn't really green!

In order to help consolidate all the information we had learned we decided to create a replica of the STAB theater.  We began by brainstorming all the rooms (theater, costume room, changing room, lobby, green room, tech room, etc.) and the items we would need to build inside each room to make it look realistic.   Then each kiddo chose a room to work on...

They got right to work with partners planning and figuring out how to create their room,..

 

And then they began happily cutting, taping, coloring, and painting.  I'm always amazed by how much focus five and six year olds display (especially this early in the school year!) when they're happily engaged in creating something of meaning...

Can you believe how closely the replica of the tech room matches the real thing (check out all those buttons)!  These kiddos are amazing, and they are obviously becoming pros at looking closely and noticing...

The big room in the middle is the main theater.  This picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice, but the details inside were beyond impressive (stairs, a black stage in front, cameras hanging from the side, a balcony area, seats, and so much more).  The group of kids that worked on this part of the project even figured out how to use clear tape going across so they could hang lights and microphones from the ceiling, just like in the real theater...


We had noticed on our walk back from the theater that the outside (facing the road) is covered in bricks, so of course we wanted to add bricks to the outside of our replica too...

The kids continued to act out shows almost every day during choice time, and as I watched them (and helped tape on outfit after outfit!) I was continually impressed by the creative construction paper costumes they could whip up in such a short time...

So, next we decided to explore some actual costumes.  Early in the school year looking closely and noticing is such an important skill for the kiddos to acquire, as future inquiry and research skills will build off of this initial one.  Here the kids  are looking closely at costumes and talking about and drawing what they see...

Their ability to add details to their drawing will continue to grow throughout the school year, but this is a pretty impressive showing for November...

The kindergarteners had clearly loved learning about our STAB theater, but I also wanted to open their ideas to the variety of theaters all over the world.  The kiddos worked in small groups to ooh and ahh, look closely, notice, and record some of the impressive features of different theaters...

Many of them had heard about (or even visited) Charlottesville's very own Paramount theater, so I put some pictures of it up on the big screen and we got busy noticing similarities and differences between the two theaters...

In the spirit of comparing and contrasting, next we headed over to the upper school to visit the new auditorium there.  To say that the kids were excited to be in such a magical space would be a massive understatement!

They checked out the tech room, sang into the microphone, danced on the stage, visited the costume and prop room, and even imagined they were actors and actresses preparing to go on stage.  I'm pretty confident some of these kids will find their way back to this stage in a few years!

Thanksgiving break brought an abrupt end to our theater investigation.  I thought about continuing the topic post-break so  we could do something more formal with regard to creating and performing our own show in the theater.  However, these kids had already been putting on shows of their own during choice for the past month.  Considering how much joy this type of informal performing was bringing them, I ultimately decided to let the planning and costume making and storytelling continue on their own five and six year old terms without imposing on their fun.

And if you're wondering whether or not the shows continued after break even though our official theater investigation had ended, just check out the reindeer, elf hats, and bag full of toys on Santa's sleigh shown in the pictures below :)