Lee+2013

Mrs. Lee's Autistic Support class welcomed theatre artist Joel Gori. Mr. Gori's stories helped the class work on emotional intelligence skills.

Learning goals: Recognize emotions in self and others Increase emotional vocabulary

In the videos and images the children first practice identifying and acting out emotions, then create characters in stories and scenes and show how the characters are feeling.

The boys are acting out The Elves the Robbers and the Thieves

Drama with Mr. Gori is engaging and encourages two difficult students to become little billy goats.

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Mr Gori introduces feeling words by acting them out and showing how different feelings make our bodies feel different ways. The older boys are beginning to use their new feeling words.....nervous, anxious, and exhausted. The students are realizing that there are more feelings than happy, sad, mad, and tired.

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The Billy Goat's Gruff was our first drama with Mr. Gori. The Students were very excited to take on the different roles after watching Mr. Gori perform the play. They knew exactly who they wanted to be and were delightful in their recreation of the play.
 * Date ||  Classroom Teacher Reflection  ||
 * 4-9-13

4-23-13

4/29/13   4/30/13  ||  Mr. Gori did some warm ups with the class then performed for them. He then included them in his performance coaxing BIG moves out of them. I was excited to see how quickly the students engaged with their performances. Mr. Gori opened the session with an exercise involving freezing movements and then bringing facial expressions into play. The students listened well and attempted to follow the instructions. The coolest thing about this warm up was the interaction amongst the students. I was so impressed with the progress the students have made during my absence. Alex, Justin, and Jake were really into making facial expressions to reflect how their characters were feeling. All of the students attempted to follow the instructions. Anna required prompting to verbalize her lines, and Ron required prompting to appropriately participate. The “play” this week was “The Billy Goats Gruff” all but Anna willingly volunteered to perform various roles.

Mr. Gori opened with the freeze exercise, the students love it. They wanted to do the Billy Goats Gruff and knew what character they wanted to be. We started with a different skit first. Mr. Gori introduced some new feeling words and acted them out. He explained while he was demonstrating how his body might feel and look. The 3 older boys readily identified and tried to come up with scenarios that might make them feel that way. We then enacted playground scenes. The biggest impact our drama has had is in the way Jake, Ron, and Justin are engaging with each other. They have begun to pretend play. They are using classroom blankets and making tents and caves at recess. They are doing this together and are conversing and directing each other, it is very cute. All of the students are engaged when Mr. Gori is here with the exception of Anna. Anna likes Mr. Gori and does respond to him, but requires prompting both verbal and physical. || The boys all participate in all skits and exercises that Joel introduces. They volunteer and are disappointed if they are not picked right away. Another plus is the practice of waiting. The boys continue to play in new ways. They are playing together more and more. They are playing on the playground as well as in the classroom. This week they built caves and were magicians! Joel and my student teacher worked together on daily scenarios and ways to interact and react; also how you might feel. || 5/14  ||  As always we begin with the “freeze” warm up. The kids know what is expected and there is an occasional testing of boundaries. Mr. Gori continues to introduce new characters to the Freeze and encourages the students to move in many different ways. You can tell that he knows the kids as the characters he chooses are things they like; robots(Henry), cowboy on a horse (Ron), rock musician (Justin) Initially Anna did not appear interested in following directions. On Monday, after some seat work, her body language indicated that she was interested. On Tues. she participated for most of the activity and only needed minimal prompting and to have her lines fed to her. While she was involved in the play she did not yell (except in the context of the play) or turn her back. WOW!!! The boys are really getting the hang of using their faces and bodies to express feelings. This was evidenced by the “Oh” story. They were to use only the word “oh” throughout the story. I thought they did a fabulous job conveying the emotions Mr. Gori described. I was especially impressed with Jacob. The older boys are getting it, but this was the first time I actually felt that Jake was too. I love the way they want to participate and know just who they want to be. On Tues. we revisited a story that had been performed a week ago. Joel changed it up a bit. He asked the kids to come up, with their own ending to the story and to cast the parts for acting. Of course each of them made themselves the star (very cute) and then cast adults and peers to act out their endings. One of the endings prompted a roller coaster ride! It is amazing to see the attention and participation lasting for an hour plus some. The kids continue to use their imaginations more and more during recess. They are also using some of the new feeling words which has prompted my student teacher to make some new feeling faces for our morning meeting. ||
 * 5/6/13 and 5/7/13 ||  We warmed up both days with the freeze exercise. The boys readily engage with the activity. I enjoy the way Mr. Gori is adding emotions to the warm ups.
 * 5/13 and