3D Line Art

After doing a few line drawing lessons that I learned from Inner City Arts, I decided to have them create structures of lines in 3D. I gave them strips of paper and told them to fold and twist the paper to make different lines that would not stick flat on the page, but pop out. I challenged them in their structures to use straight lines, curvy lines, zig zag lines, etc. As they were creating these different structures I asked them to think about what their structure could be? I made the mistake of giving the suggestion that one looked like a roller coaster, so after that of course everyone's was a roller coaster. Even with in that I tried to have them think about it more deeply. Is it just one roller coaster or several? Are there other rides happening as well? Where is the beginning/end of the roller coaster?

I was getting really excited for them as they were creating these. They were all so different and they all found ways to manipulate the strips of paper that I would not have even though of. It was really refreshing to see one of my students who has a lot of behavioral problems really get into this project and be excited about it. Yes, finally something positive that engages him!! I will have to find other ways to allow him to create and build things.

Theatre Around the World: Japanese Bunraku Puppet Theatre

Japaneses Bunkraku is a beautiful and elaborate art form. Puppet masters study for many years to be able to operate the puppets' movements and gestures. It usually takes 3 people to operate one puppet. I liked this lesson because it is so different from other forms of theatre. It also is very different from my students' concept of what puppetry is. I went over with them how this type of puppetry is different from an American puppet show. I showed them pictures of the elaborate painting and costumes of the puppets.

Obviously we could not make our own Bunraku puppets, but I did find this template online to make simple marionette puppets. My students really loved making these. I tried to encourage them to think of it as a character rather than drawing themselves. After making the puppets, I put them into groups to come up with a little story of how their puppet would interact with other puppets. The only rule is that their puppets can not fight one another. (All the boys would just have their puppets attack each other otherwise). I wanted to have them practice talking and moving through the puppet. It wasn't themselves that was acting, but it was their puppet. Rather than have them just hold the puppet and talk, I tried to challenge them to make the puppet move and interact with the other puppets. They would forget to make sure their puppet was facing the audience a few times, but they did ok for the amount of time I gave them. It was interesting to see the differences in the boys and girls story lines. In the group with all girls, their story could have gone on forever about everywhere they went and everything they did if I didn't eventually cut them off. I was lucky if the boys' story was 30 sec. My conclusion of this dynamic is due to girls playing with dolls and coming up with similar scenarios. Oh gender roles at play so early in life.

Here are a few pictures of their puppets.

Santa Ynez Falls Hike

This is by my favorite hike that I have discovered in LA so far. It is in Topanga Canyon State Park in Malibu. It's the perfect mix of mountain hiking with a view, and canyon hiking with a waterfall. (Well, usually just a trickle, but it's still a great hike.) I realized that I really love hiking in the woodsy areas where you hardly even feel like you are in the city. The hike to me feels out of a storybook as the scenes change as you continue the hike. You walk along the side of a mountain, then into the tress, through bamboo forest, past the cave holes, mounting boulders, skipping through streams. Its pretty magical. I went first on my own and didn't encounter another person for the first 45 minutes of the hike. This was also wonderful. I have been on too many hikes where its so crowded with people you can hardly notice the peaceful sounds of nature. I went a second time with my sister when she came up to visit me in LA. I love hiking with my sister because she makes me do things I would never do on my own. She pushes me to challenge myself. My moto when I am hiking with her is, "I may look like a fool doing it, but I can do it." This was definitely true on this hike. (See below). Yes, Malibu is a bit of a drive but so worth it.

This is the little cave we found. We wondered if people have slept there before.
At the top of the waterfall.

When we found the waterfall, I also saw an old friend of mine that I went to Ghana with. I haven't seen him in years. What a random place to run into each other! His friends were climbing up this rock on the side of the waterfall. At first it looked way to hard for either of us to try it. There was a rope but no place to really even get your footing. I was surprised that my sister didn't even want to try because she's usually up for anything. Then she asked me, "Do you think I can do it?" Since I saw this other girl do it about her size, I said, "Yeah you can do it." She easily climbed the rock. It didn't look so bad so I thought I would give it a try. As I started to mount the rock, I realized that I really couldn't get a footing. I told my sister that I didn't think I could do it. To which she responded, "You just have to trust yourself that you can pull yourself up." To which I did, without much trouble at all. There was not much to see at the top of the waterfall, climbing was more to just say that we did it. I had seem a few people go down this rock, and it did look tricky but I thought getting up would be harder. When my sister went down, I don't think I was paying too much attention because I was taking pictures of her. As I went down, I am still not really sure exactly what happened. Maybe I thought it wouldn't be that bad because getting up ended up being so easy. But somehow I ended up just danging from the rope screaming, "Oh sh**, oh sh**!" I clung to to rope for dear life, waiting for my feeble arms to give out. I expected at any moment to drop, crashing down into the rocky water below and breaking a limb. My sister was laughing and telling me to stop cussing in front of kids who were now approaching the bottom of the waterfall. Obviously my language was not at the forefront of my mind as death seemed a possible outcome in that moment. After a moment of realizing that I should do something before my bony arms gave out, I somehow managed to inch my way down the rope not scraping up my arm too badly on the way down. However, my jeans were ripped and muddy and my shirt was almost all way pushed up. Another embarrassing sight in front of the children. I survived much to the humor of my "rofl" sister. So my moto always is, "I may look like a fool doing it, but I can do it."

This is my at the beginning, before it got bad.
My sister said this little flower looked like a wedding bouquet. People must have gotten the idea for wedding bouquets from this flower.

Theatre Around the World: Chinese Opera

This was a fun week because I got to show them a little video which they were excited about. Chinese Opera is actually really interesting history. I wish that I had more time to do more research on it. I did find that Chinese Opera plays would be held inside of amusement parks. One amusement park had over 60 stages! So cool. Can you imagine how awesome it would be to just spend a whole day and see play after play? Theatre marathon!

This clip that I showed them is called "Fighting in the Dark." I saw it in one of my college classes and thought is was so cool. I knew my students would love it. In the video there is a master of the house (wearing white) and a thief (wearing black). They are supposed to be in the dark so they can't see each other. I was worried my students would try to mimic the martial arts move, as they already have issues with too much violent behavior. I made them promise me they wouldn't try anything. Its really more like dance fighting anyway, which I think is cool.

New Computer

Sorry that I have been MIA. My computer died and I just got my new one today. Get ready for a rush of blog posts soon. Ok maybe not a rush, but I do have a few posts that I want to do.

Theatre Around the World: Commedia dell'Arte

In our next adventure in the world of theatre, I took them to Italy to study the Renaissance and Commedia dell'Arte. The few facts that I was trying to get them to leave with was that they performed their plays outsides, there were no scripts from because most of it was improvised, and that they wore masks. I talked a little bit about stock characters but I think that went over their heads. We went over masking and I showed them some pictures of Commedia dell'Arte masks.

Since everything was very large and outlandish, we played an improv game called, "Make it bigger." I have them improvise a very short simple scene. Then I have them do the scene over again with huge hand gestures, big expressions, and everything exaggerated. Once I gave them some examples, I was actually very impressed their ability to make the simple scene grand and outlandish. It was fun to see them really get a chance to act in this game. They loved it as well.

Theatre Around the World: Shakespeare

I taught a lesson on Shakespeare that was very similar to a lesson that I taught over the summer. You can see another post on that. I am just trying to get them to walk away with a few facts from each type of theatre that we study. I am finding that its hard to get them to remember even a few short facts. Since I've been to London, I showed them pictures of the Globe. The best part of the lesson was telling them about gender roles in Shakespearean Theatre. First, I told them that women were not allowed to be actors in that time. The girls cried out in outrage and the boys gave a mean spirited, Haha. Then I tell them that there were still girls in Shakespeare's plays so the boys dressed up as girls. "Eewwww, no way." So its the girls who get the last laugh.

I told them the story of the Tempest in a very truncated version. Then I let them act it out. The part where Caliban and Trinculo hide under the cloak is a fun scene for kids to act out. Also, the part where a pack of hounds chase Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo. The love story with Ferdinand and Miranda can be tricky but because there are so few girl roles, all the girls want to be Miranda and all the boys want to be the Prince so it works out.