Ah, second graders. I'm taking a children's theatre course this semester: reading children's scripts, putting on plays for and with kids, etc. etc.
Right now we're in the middle of rehearsing a second grade re-enactment of The Little Engine That Could. For those of you who do not remember second grade, you were probably seven at the time. So, we have something in the region of maybe 16 seven year olds working on this. We originally worried that perhaps the story was too young for them, until we discovered that only two of them claimed to have ever heard of the story.
In our group we've got a girl with extreme autism who has skipped her nap both days we've worked with them. She has an aid who works with her, but the poor kid is either crying her eyes out or being dragged through the actions of the play by the aid.
We've also got a kid with a walker, whose social skills (I guess) are improving in leaps and bounds. Red-Headed Theatre Ed Prof says that as little as two months ago he was pretty much either totally uncooperative or spaced out beyond all comprehension. We haven't had any trouble with him at all: he's our Little Blue Engine.
They're mostly excited, except for the fact that (except for our two little clowns) they all want to change characters every five minutes. They want to rehearse it every single minute of class, except for when we tell them it's time to do it one more time. We tell them to speak up, so their voices go up in pitch rather than volume... still working on that one.
They still claim they've never heard this story, but both the clowns and trains have managed to pull dialouge straight from the book, except for when they do The Little Engine meets The Sopranos. Instead of being sad when the trains turn them down, they're downright vindictive. We've heard the trains called everything from "stinky poopy-heads" to Clown Number One threatening to "make the trains pay".
What amazes me the most, however, is that no one has asked to go to the bathroom. Working with third graders, I have learned that they have to pee just about every thirty minutes. These kids don't. I have no idea why. Perhaps strange situations give kids bladders of steel. On the other hand, we have them for fifty minutes. If the whole class stops by the bathroom before they get on the bus and as soon as they get back, then maybe it's not such a big deal. But man, it weirds me out.
Also, the image hosting has died again. I dunno why. My guess is that perhaps the e-mail I got from them that I thought was spam really wasn't and they are gone for good. I really ought to just pay for hosting here. (How many times have I said that?)