PPP Performs - Boys and Girls Club - Day 1

Paper Picker Press Performs

Boys and Girls Club – Chelsea
Day 1

Who: Emily, Maria and Patricia
Story: All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury
14 kids (only girls)

We started the first day by doing the questionnaire that took them 2 minutes to fill it out. One of my favorite answers for the question about what is their favorite part about writing was “you can write your own words anyway you want to”. I thought it was perfect.

We started with some games (names, Boal stop/walk) to get them moving.

We moved to picking an object in the room/ talking about it/ word association/ expressing it with their bodies/ images/photographs/discussion about meaning. When asked about what makes all of them different from each other some of the answers were: the way you think, the way you speak, express yourself, personalities, emotions, culture and heritage.

We moved into the story, clarifying that there were no wrong or right way to listen to a story. They all chose their special place in the room where they would go back to write down some thoughts, feelings or drawings about the story.

While reading the story Emily would stop at some moments and give them 1 minute to write their thoughts.

After we finished the story the kids shared their thoughts and feelings. They talked about depression, disappointment, sadness and happiness. They talked about how they imagined the planet Venus with the bright sun and all the different colors. We then chose together 4 themes that were said by the group. Sadness, disappointment, happiness and Anger.

We divided them in 4 groups and each group was assigned a theme to come with a performance. A lot of the girls wanted to perform happiness.

After 10 minutes they all went on stage and performed their stories. They were apparently having fun. According to the survey a lot of them loved the acting part but a few of them were not into it. They were told if they don’t want to perform they don’t have to.

At the end we discussed all the performances and how they were connected to the story.

Closing game
End of the day survey

To sum up, all went pretty well for the first day. Emily led the activities most of the time and I observed how the kids were interacting. It’s a good group. They all know each other and that makes them more comfortable to do all the games and activities. When asked if they knew what the workshop was about they said besides reading and writing that it was about imagination.

Can't wait for Day 2. I had fun too.

Maria