24th March

Today we refined the opening to our performance. We added some more that the children can join in with, when I say something like 'put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care'. This gets them excited and involved in the performance, and physically moving so hopefully they will be paying attention at this point. 

To create an atmosphere to set the scene of the first story we thought of 5 things you would find in a magical forest. We came up with toad stools, trees, magical stepping stones on the floor, a stream and singing flowers. My group created the toad stools, using a person curled up into a ball with something on your back, a bit like a shield, decorated to look like the top of a toad stool to make a flat colourful top. This means they can then come out of being a mushroom and move easily. It also makes a good use of the cast. I also had the idea that the toad stools could move, and swap places everynow and then in a kind of dance, to add movement to the scene and make it more magical. 

After we had created each of our parts of the forest we worked together to create the river. I think actually making it makes it much better for the children to watch instead of just having sound effects, as it will bring it to life infront of them and hopefully stimulate their imaginations. 

20th March

Today we started researching the types of stories we could do for our performance. We had to pick three stories between the whole group, so we each selected two and discussed why they would be good and if they were suitable or not. 

Our first choice was Jack and the Beanstalk. This is a classic fairy tale that most young children should know. It will be easy to create and add bits to as the story line is pretty straight forward so we will be able to focus on things such as audience participation, as well as telling the story.

The second story we chose is Little Red Riding Hood. This is good as again most children will know the basic story of red riding hood. It also has surprises within the story which will keep the children interested, and we can create the different settings within the story in lots of creative ways, giving the children lots to look at.

The last story we have chosen is Goldilocks and three bears. This is a very simple story with lots of repetition which will be easy to get the children to join in with. It will also be very easy for them to follow the story and we can get them to help us with the story as they will all know it, this will make audience participation very easy to incorporate into our performance. 

We decided that we would have an opening to our performance to get the children involved and get their attention before we started telling the actual stories. To create this we used inspiration from the previous lessons when we had created a scene with a big story book. It now begins with two of the cast talking to the children about healthy eating and being overly boring, then suddenly two more of us appear, one carrying a massive story book and the other addressing the children directly, getting them excited. Then using audience participation, by teaching them a chant, we made the two boring people fun and took the children's attention to the book. After a group effort to open the book, I list out a few different stories which the other three on stage do comical actions for, and we finally choose the story Little Red Riding Hood which the other three get the children excited for.