Play Performances and Graduation Recap

The culmination of our efforts, graduation!

Hello there, sorry for the delay, though I figured Zach already touched on this whole play and graduation business and I would wait until I posted my own take. Now that all this business has blown over it doesn't seem as bad, but it was a trying period, almost on par with the Christmas chaos. 

The play business was several weeks in the making with lots of research time, debating pulling out our hair, and children running amok. One of the first challenges was choosing a play. I overshot this one with flying colors thinking that I could somehow do Peter Pan with 10 kindergarten kids. Soon enough my class dropped to 9 as one of my kids was no longer coming to our school (I miss you Stella!). Time to reevaluate. Lo and behold, after reviewing the script that I had found I realized that this was not going to work and I needed something new and fast. I finally settled on Stone Soup, easy enough in concept and I had found a script I could tailor down quickly and most of the kiddos would be using the same basic line. 

I thought everything was under control at this point, but then I ran into a motivation and logistics piece. First of all, it was hard to explain to the kids what we were doing and why we were doing it. How do I, with minimal useful Korean language skills, explain to nine 5 and 6 year olds that we were doing a play and that we were going to be practicing it for the upcoming weeks? An explanation on the board didn't work, so thank goodness for me, our Korean teacher came to the rescue! I explained what was happening, gave her a copy of the script, and she performed a miracle by getting them to cooperate and explaining what we were doing in a way that they understood. I'm also thankful for the fact that the "main characters" were able to use a script during the play.  I'm not so thankful because we were stuck up in our room instead of being able to practice downstairs in the gym where we could set up in a way they could remember and practice. 

With that taken care of we got down to business. I changed the main part of the hungry beggar into two parts with Michael and James taking them (they're kind of a pair anyway). Evelyn was my first poor villager who had to wait in her house for the beggars to knock and then answer them. Tomas was my second poor villager who did the same. Evelyn later brought the cabbage for the pot and Tomas brought the tomatoes. 

Thank goodness for Hana teacher for saving the day. Here she's helping run them through the play "Stone Soup". After knocking on the door they wait for the other "villagers" to bring items to make their special soup!

Part of my crew waits very impatiently for their turn to go. Julia, on the far left, first brought the pot and water, and later she brought the onions and potatoes. Sarah brought the carrots (and later the mushrooms since I wasn't sure if Daniel 1 would be present or not). John brought the wood to start the fire. Daniel 2 first brought the salt and pepper and then brought the meat for the pot. 

Of course, what's a show/performance without the fancy backdrop and banner to promote it? The piano in the bottom corner was also brought out so that some of the children could perform songs for the parents. 

Our director even got cute little caps and gowns for the graduating class. Happy Graduation Lily, Susan, Chris, Luke, Kate, Carley, and Aiden! The ceremony itself was first and they were given cute little diplomas and a nice set of colored pencils. 

Here my class prepares for the big event by... running around like crazies. I think that in the time they were forced to stay in this small room with adults running around at least three of them were injured in some shape or form. Evelyn took a nosedive and hit her head on the wall when she went to lay on the cushioned mat in the corner, Julia and Daniel 2 were pushed, and there were the usual squabbles and tears. 

Everything is ready to go here, including David lying on the floor. To the far left you can see the doors to the school along with my two table "houses" and my other play props. On the green counter you can see part of the props for Hana teacher's Jasper class which was the Do Re Mi song from the Sound of Music. Then on the floor and to the right are the tree "costumes" for the Elmer class, the fence, witches broom, cauldron and various other things for their rendition of Hansel and Gretel. 

So I had to get creative with props and set things, so I decided that the houses for the play would be tables turned on one end. I made the rooftops out of cereal boxes and then just used paper for the doorknobs and windows. They turned out pretty cute I thought. 

This is my masterpiece (I got really into this prop business), aside from the vegetables. The wood at the bottom of the chair was placed there by John, then he was responsible for starting the "fire".

After placing the wood John pulled the tab with his name on it (reminders are good for little kids) and unfolded the accordion paper to make this lovely little fire. The parents were impressed and loved it (including the MC that was hired for the event) and the kids thought it was fun too. 

One by one the kids dropped in one or two items into the pot, though Daniel 2 got to shake the salt and pepper in right after the pot and water were placed. Julia, who placed the pot, also added the "water" which was small pieces of paper that I had cut up in two shades of blue to make it more fun. 

Here Hana teacher lined them up to go out and perform Bumble Bee since they were first up.

My little bumble bees. Daniel 2 hates performing in front of people, I'm sure you can tell who I mean.

The girls also performed the customary k-pop dances for the group. They work on these for weeks. They've started stepping it up and using clips from 3 or 4 songs and Lily in yellow is their ringleader and head dancer.

OH YEAH. How could I forget costumes? I didn't, but I wish I could. At first this was just going to be a small production, but then our director found out that some grandparents and other family were coming to the graduation. That means costumes and more effort/money on her part. The costumes aren't an unusual thing by an means and it seems pretty standard to rent costumes for kids for special events. What is unusual is our director's taste in costumes. She asked us into the office one day and asked us about what kind of costumes the kids would need for the plays. We both explained the basics of the plays, mine being Stone Soup and a town of poor people visited by two poor, hungry beggars, and Zach's Dino Pet play with some kids, a dinosaur, a doctor, a parent and various other normally dressed people. Obviously something got lost in translation, or she just didn't care. See the above costume for evidence. 

Unfortunately for me, I had yet another cold around this time and was feeling generally miserable. I even retreated upstairs for a while when we were supposed to have class after taking cold medicine that knocked me out. Stressed and sick, great! Somehow I made it through though and we were able to say goodbye to this rather busy event finally.

So what happened exactly? My town of poor beggars ended up as a town of fruits and veggies being visited by two dressed down clowns. I had a strawberry, two apples, two pineapples, some miscellaneous green/yellow/white thing, a turnip, and two beggar clowns. O-kay!

The rest of the group ensemble was just as interesting. Zach had two witches, a sailor, a dragon instead of a dinosaur, and other miscellaneous things. The Hansel and Gretel costumes were just as interesting. Lots of flashy/sparkly costumes and some animals (including the two squirrels above). 

Some of them weren't terribly impressed by their costumes and Lily seemed to be rather embarrassed to wear her sparkly vest and shirt for the play. It's hard being a pre-teen! 

Here the older kids practice during the day, before the event in the evening. I think we were all grateful when it was over.

Finally, the big event started around 5:30pm and once everyone was assembled the graduation ceremony (the first picture above) started. Our director had nice diplomas and folders for the graduating students and a nice colored pencil set. There was some food set out for people who attended. The ceremony was first, and pictures were taken with Zach and the child and their parents (since it was his class graduating). Poor Zach had a rather gimpy knee around this time from too much rough housing with the kids so he just kind of limped around everywhere. 

After the graduation and pictures were taken we finally got started with the plays and performances. I will say that I am super grateful that the MC guy was there since he made it so much easier on us. Zach narrated the plays and I was shuffling kids around at various times for songs and helping put on and put away costumes. Zach's play was first and that was interesting due to the minimal "on stage" practice and personalities. Aiden, the play's dinosaur, decided he'd rather run around and do whatever he felt like, which isn't surprising. After getting through that it was my class's turn and that was interesting too. They did pretty well, all things considered, though they fail to pay attention all too frequently. Then, finally, there were some ending speeches (which we had to do, of course) and pictures, and finally it was time to clean up and be finished! We also got snagged for a bunch of pictures with kids and Carley's grandmother decided she loved me and wanted a picture of us with Carley. Daniel 1's mom also wanted a picture with me since she apparently really likes me.

Since Zach's knee was gimpy and swollen (it was preeettty) we decided to opt out of going to dinner with the director, Hana, and a few of the parents so he could put it up and rest. She said she'd bring us dinner which we thought was rather nice, so we waited, and waited. Then we finally went to bed around 11pm and heard her come in shortly after. We didn't think much of it, but were so exhausted from the day's events that we just went to bed. In the morning after we woke up we discovered that she had left McDonald's on the counter, a decent gesture, if it hadn't been sitting out all night and we had already given up the night before. At least the craziness was over though? I guess.