Stage Combat

We watched a bunch of Stage Combat videos and got really interested in this almost-dance-like art form. (I remember it being a big hit [HA HA] last time too!) 

I got my mom to save us some newspapers so we could make swords while we were learning about fight choreography. It's pretty cool to learn even some basics of how people make fighting look more real on stage and on film. I split the kids up into groups of two and had them choreograph their own fight scenes.

These two just liked whacking their swords together and laughing about it

Goldie and Teddy worked Clementine and Gus and Zig into their little scene and it was almost like a mini-play. Super cute.

Daisy and Junie's fight scene was amazing! They did Romeo and Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet. They fought with swords, fists, and feet, and were practicing all morning to get it exactly right! It was like a complicated dance, and they did it SO well…I thought several times, "Oh no, they really hit each other!"

(This would be a good place to remember little Daisy getting super into fight scenes as a 5-year-old and saying "I die, I die!" So this flair for the dramatic is not new. 😄)

There was even one part where Daisy slashed at Junie's arm, and she clapped her hand over the wound, then lifted it away and looked at it covered with blood. She had colored with red marker on her hand and arm in that spot, to reveal it at that precise moment, and it was actually SO realistic and somewhat terrifying!

Here is one of their takes of the finished fight

And here is my favorite fight scene ever, by Gus and Clementine.

The Second Shakespeare Unit (ruffs, Globe Theater, sonnets)

We had an enormous Shakespeare Unit to fill out the school year after we got home from Quebec at Christmastime. It was super fun to revisit our favorite writings and plays. I don't know why I'm bothering to post these unit organization screenshots, because you can't even read the tiny writing, and the links aren't clickable, but I don't know how to put them in a more useful format here. At least this will help me remember a broad overview of things we talked about and did!

Here is a pretty old Pinterest Board from last time we did this (hopefully some of the links still work?):

Shakespeare Unit Pinterest Board

And some assorted pictures from activity days during this unit. Making ruffs (we did this years ago too):

Gus was inspired by his ruff and the "clothing in the Elizabethan Era" videos that we watched, and ended up making a whole elaborate costume for himself.

He looks just as grand as Queen Elizabeth!

Hmm, not sure why this is in this batch of pictures? cute, though :)

Here are the children working on making paper models of the Globe Theater:   https://www.papertoys.com/globe.htm

Goldie's, maybe?

Ziggy's (look at all the people inside!)

Junie's

Talking about Macbeth and making "witch's brew" with dry ice:

Eek, a scary witch!

Some wonderful sonnet-writing practice:

Ziggy's less formal interpretation :)

Teddy's perfectly-scanning sonnet

Inside Ziggy's "life size" globe theater (complete with watching animal audience):