Marybeth & R.J.’s Class Notes

As we begin the second week of December we are immersed in the world of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The children are loving this tale of adventure, magic, romance, and conspiracy. They are exploring the meaning of the text in their scene rehearsals and through our annual art project, The Shakespeare Scramble. The “Scramble” is a collaborative project whereby partners illustrate a line of text in the form of a multimedia poster. The play is then “unscrambled” at an all-school gathering where the children share their posters in sequence. In addition to their individual roles, our class has been cast in a wonderful group part as the island sprite, Ariel, who transforms into a gruesome half man, half bird, Harpy.

As the children work to bring The Tempest to life, they are busy with their own stories of the sea behind the scenes. This week our Mermaid and Sea Witch group will begin painting back drops for their variety show per- formances. The Kraken group is busy planning out a shadow puppet show, and our Sea Ghost group is deciding between building a model of a ghost ship or telling their story with a “Crankie Box.”

Our oldest students are wrapping up their study of folklore by creating one page documents of their learning. “One pagers” are visual documents which utilize imagery and text to convey information and summarize learn ing.

The new year will bring a culmination of the fictional phase of our Stories of the Sea project, and usher in the introduction of our historical work. More details to follow in 2025!