This week at Kids @ Citz

So here I am again to update on my classes at Kids @ Citz this past weekend...

On Saturday all the 4-8s (Tiny and Little Citizens) were working on the story of Sleeping Beauty... quite a tough one because the Disney version is sooooooooo different from the traditional version! But that didn't stop all the children getting stuck right in and doing some fab work! The Little Citizens went on a journey through the story and had the chance to explore lots of different characters and locations within the story while the Tiny Citizens did their usual story-acting. We saw some lovely pictures and movement (in particular as the forest and the vines that grow up around the castle). One of my highlights was Robbie (from our afternoon class) singing us a full rendition of "Once upon a dream" (from the Disney film) while we were working as a group to tell the story.

Sunday was a really productive day and the creative juices were well and truly flowing in all three of my classes. The first Junior Citizens class used different hats as the stimulus for their character work and from this they devised some brilliant scenes. We also had a chat about the sharing and agreed to work on a short play (not too much longer than the scenes that we make up each week in class). It seems that this will be based on ideas that have come out of the character work we have been doing and also our games of bus stop and park bench.

The second Junior Citizens class were really focused on creating the character of the Ice Queen that is the central character in their sharing piece. After the group shared scenes they had put together to introduce us to this character we had a fab discussion about her back story and everybody contributed really well, paying real attention to the Ice Queen's motivations and how she came to be evil, where her power came from and who her arch enemy is. It looks like the plot of the piece is going to fall somewhere between Blood Brothers, Harry Potter and Wicked!

We just about had a full house in the last Junior Citizens class (after such depleted numbers last week!) and managed to do some brilliant work. We have now secured the plot for "Who Ate the Gingerbread Man?" and we know who the culprit is but I can't share that until after the sharing because it's a spoiler!!!! What I can tell you is that this piece is going to be VERY funny!

The really lovely thing about these classes is that all 7 are so different! They all have different aims and abilities in different areas. Every class makes me smile in a different way, I think that is why I enjoy tutoring these classes so much.

So, we are off for the next two weekends for the October school holiday and then we're back for the half way point... I can't believe how quickly the weeks are disappearing!