musical

A Musical for 2nd Grade All About Plants!

You may have notice my shortage of posts over the past couple weeks (good thing I know Jee Young will always hold up the fort^^). Believe me though, it is not from a lack of things to share. As teachers, we all understand what a crazy/busy time the last month of school is. So— why. WHY? Did I think it was a good time to put on a musical? I have been asking myself this question for the past two months.

You may remember Jee Young’s post’s about this particular company: Bad Wolf Press, that I discovered last year. Since then, our school has put on The Turkeys Go On Strike, Character Matters, Geology Rocks, The Pirates of Grammar Island, and just today: The Garden Show! (All of which can be found on the linked site.)

Today is a national holiday in Korea (being an international school we didn’t have the day off), and because of that we had the largest turnout of parents come to our students’ performance yet. There is nothing more rewarding than seeing so many parents come out to support their children. They were very impressed, as they should be, since the second graders did and AMAZING job!

We learn about plants during spring time in second grade, so this musical fit with our benchmarks and standards perfectly!

Learning through songs is just one of the many ways we learn. What is your favorite way to teach?

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Student Made Props Rocks!

It’s finally showtime for my fifth grade students! Today, we had our performance of Geology Rocks for the whole elementary school and besides a few small technology glitches it went pretty smoothly. I think the teachers had more fun enjoying some of the humor from the lines and songs! Tomorrow, we have the performance for the parents. 🙂

The props for the musical were all made by the students. We had the students make signs that said the name of the part and a picture of it. We worked with the art teacher, Rachel. She had them make the signs and our one big prop (a mountain) for the stage.

The art teacher had them use different mediums for the signs. Some were done with water colors, color pencils or thick crayons. The students then used black paper to cut out the words and glued them on top. Afterwards, I laminated them and hole-punched them on the top and put a string through it. Now, the students could hang them around their necks during the show.

For the rocks (igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary), they cut out signs in the shape of rocks and colored them. They came out really well too!

Thank you Ms. Rachel for all your help! We couldn’t have done it without you. We ❤ art.

Fifth Grade Musical: Geology Rocks!

“Musical plays for the musically timid teacher…” Yes, that is the tag line for Bad Wolf Press that Melody discovered last year. Her class performed,  “The Turkeys Go On Strike”, which was a huge success. They have a wide arrange of musicals for the different grade levels and subject areas.  You do have to pay to order the musical, but it was definitely worth it.  It comes with a  copy of the script and a CD with all the songs and instrumentals versions as well. I can definitely say I am a musically timid teacher, but Bad Wolf Press makes it easy to do and fun for the kids.

This year, both fifth grade classes will putting on the musical, Geology Rocks! It is a mystery where Sherlock Holmes and Watson are trying to figure out what happened to Professor Rock. It goes along nicely with our science unit on landforms that we are currently studying. In the book, they give great tips on how to practice, rehearse and perform the musical. They give you a four week plan. So this week, we are on week 2, where students have been listening and singing the songs. There are 10 songs that are in the musical. The students don’t necessarily sing all of the songs. I have to admit, last night as I was trying to fall asleep, the chorus to the main song in the musical was stuck in my head…He loves, he loves, volcanoes…

Next week, the students will be reading the script and choosing parts. I hope to post more on the process and final production of our first ever fifth grade musical!

P.S. We ❤ comments! Let us know that you were here.

Geology ROCKS!

The Cast