The Best Type of Creativity

Today's Game Plan:

1) Get DH and oldest ready for the field trip to the beach (meaning, make sure that sun screen is packed...and sack lunches)

2) Leave house at 7:30 and swing thru IL's to pick up the old boogie board so that some classmate who does not have a board can have fun in the water with everyone else.

3)Drop everyone, including youngest DS off at school, smile and wish everyone a GREAT day

4) Be home by 8:15, take the pooch for an hour walk

5) 9:30 Update blog and start card

REALITY:

1) Drag both boys out of bed despite pleas of "PLEEEEASE!! Just 5 more minutes!"

2) Leave house at 7:30, pick up extra boogie board and drop everyone off at school.

3) Go into youngest DS's classroom and find that DS's best friend has returned to school (kiddos go to a small private church school. Best friend's parent's tried the public school. Best friend was MISERABLE and is now back)

4) End up putting numbers on 11 pencil boxes and supplies. Label workbooks. Run to STAPLES and replace broken pencil box for teacher.

5) While out to STAPLES, run to Rite Aid to buy a battery for dying watch. Spend 15 min trying to get the battery cover off of watch. Spend another 15 min trying to find the battery cover of the watch that went flying when the cover finally decided to come loose. Spent 10 min trying to figure out how to reset all the settings on said watch (by this time, I seriously considered just buying a new watch)

6) Return to school with new pencil box. Transfer everything from broken box to new box.

7) Arrive at home at 10:45 am FAMISHED (seems that while I made sure everyone else had a good hearty breakfast, I had a peach).

8) 11:30....snack done....trying to update blog

OK....enough of my whining. On with the show!

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Daycare. Major stress during the summer when the "stay at home" parent is called in to work. Luckily, one of the teacher aides at the school does "daycare" at her home in summer and doesn't mind my varied schedule week to week. This year she had 6 kids, ages 7-12 that she watched. Mrs. B is WONDERFUL. The kids have a regular routine (including MATH!) that they follow each day. She has introduced the kids to games that parents shudder at (LIFE...do you know how long it takes to play that game?!) but she will gladly sit on the floor and play with them. Daily crafts. Daily swimming. Feeds them. You get the idea~~~WONDERFUL!!

This year she read Swift Arrow, by Josephine Cunnington Edwards. This book is one that I read when I was a kid! Basic story line: Boylan family moves along with 14 other families to new territory. The son, George, along with his best friend Robert are "stolen" by Indians. The boys are separated at some point. George becomes the adopted son of the chief Big Wolf and the brother of Ewanah. The story goes on over the next 12 years that George spends living with the Indians before making his escape and finding his way home.

Here is where creativity takes place. Shortly after finishing the book, one of the girls suggests that the kids put on a play about Swift Arrow. Of course, since kids don't have our adult fears of "we can't do this", they all jump on the bandwagon. The kids, with the help of Mrs. B, figure out a script that would include all of them (since the story is mostly about George/Swift Arrow, support characters were brought in at the beginning and some smaller parts were added). How the transitions of characters and how the younger George and Ewanah would "grow". The kids each played multiple parts. AND, they created the set(s)!!

Parents/Grandparents were invited to a light supper of haystacks (have I mentioned that Mrs. B is wonderful? In addition to corralling 6 kids who each had their own idea of how this play should go, she made dinner for everyone!) and then we were treated to the play. The kids used scripts, since they each had multiple parts and in all reality, only a little over a week to pull this all together. Which makes it all the more amazing!

Here are some photos of the evening (uhhh, the professional photographer could not make it. These were taken by "mom" hehe)

The opening set. The kids painted the backdrop and the tipis.

"Grandpappy and Marcus Boylan discussing the move. (Grandpappy would be my youngest, and Marcus is my oldest)

*H~loading the wagon, watched by *K~Ma...."Robert" is in the grey (Chace, my youngest), with *J behind him(young George Boylan) with "Marcus Boylan/Pa (my oldest, Grant) and *S~Grandpappy. The families loading up their wagons for the move

Marcus Boylan" in front of one of the newly built cabins

The "Indian Village". The kids painted TWO different sets!!

Members of the Indian Village where "George" becomes "Swift Arrow"

The play had an intermission (if you notice the second Indian....he is a little wet. Seems that George did not know how to swim which displeased Big Wolf. So Big Wolf took George out to the lake (aka the pool) to watch "big fish swim". "George" learned how to swim!!). While George changed into dry clothes, eveyone enjoyed homemade strawberry shortcake and brownies. By now, the sun is obviously setting but the show goes on!

Me Serious Indian! HEHEE.....my youngest posing!

The kids did an amazing job!! Talk about creativity!! From start to finish, they came up with the idea, wrote the script, did the backdrops and preformed!! What a lesson to be learned! If you have an idea~~GO FOR IT!! You only have yourself stopping you!!

Thanks for stopping by!!