Research: Books

Story book 1: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a children's book illustrated and written by Eric Carle which was first published by the World Publishing Company in 1969, later published by Penguin Putnam.  It’s about a caterpillar that eats its way through a wide variety of foodstuffs before pupating and emerging as a butterfly. The Very Hungry Caterpillar uses colourful picture and simple text with educational themes like counting, learning the days of the week, different types of foods, and how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.

Synopsise:

A green baby caterpillar hatches from an egg, and then starts craving food. He eats through fruits for five days, one piece of fruit on the first, two on the second, and so on up to the fifth day. Then the caterpillar starts to eat more types of foods. Soon after the caterpillar is finished eating he realise that he has eaten too much and feels ill. The caterpillar soon feels better and then spins a cocoon in which he stays for the following two weeks. Later, the caterpillar emerges as a bright, colourful butterfly with large, gorgeous, multi-coloured wings. These are the types of food that the caterpillar eats: 1 apple, 2 pears, 3 plums, 4 strawberries, 5 oranges, 1 piece of chocolate cake, 1 ice cream cone 1 pickle, 1 slice of Swiss cheese, 1 slice of salami, 1 lollipop, 1 piece of cherry pie, 1 sausage, 1 cupcake, 1 slice of watermelon and 1 green leaf.

Opinion:

This story dose well to entertain young children because in the story book it’s able to attracted their attention with big colourful pictures of food which is affective as its eye catching for due to the contrasts of colours. This can help our performance because we can make bright and colourful costumes for our charters to capture the children’s attention while they watch our piece. The book is also effective because it has educational purposes as each teaches children how to count and other things like different types of food but even with these educational tools in the story children still find the book fun.

Story book 2: Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” Is a children's picture book published in 1967. It was written and illustrated by Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle, the book is designed to help toddler’s learn different colours and the meanings of everyday objects. The book itself has little plot. Instead, the narrator of the book asks various animals what they see with them saying what they see is another coloured animal and this is repeated following the chain of animals. The story itself has a Brown Bear, Red Bird, Yellow Duck, Blue Horse, Green Frog, Purple Cat, White Dog, Black Sheep, a Goldfish, a Teacher and Students.

Opinion:

Brown bear, Brown bear, what do you see? Is written by the same person who create the very Hungry caterpillar so they have similar methods of telling the story but Brown bear, Brown bear, what do you see? Has more creative art work for pictures as it has a lot more to show with the different types of animals. This links to my point about using bright and colourful thing to capture the children’s attention towards our show. The book itself has little story and more educational themes but is still very entertain which could show that our show doesn’t need to have a big plot but just needs to be entertain for the children with colours and creative, loveable characters.

Little Red part 1

Today in lesson we started work on Little Red Riding hood for our performing to children workshop. We cast Meg as Little Red, Dan MacKay as Narrator, Dan Smith as The wolf and Toby as Red’s Grandma. We start our piece with Little Red interacting with me, Tom, Carl, Dom, Toby and Freya as we our all pretending to be animals like Birds, squirrels and deer’s, all friendly woodland creature. Red than runs to the front and says “Hello boys and girls, I’m Little Red Riding Hood”, the woodland creatures than go “Noooooo, you’re Little Red”. Red than asks “Has anyone seen my Basket”, the narrator now holds up the basket and the animals point at the basket to encourage the children to tell Red where her basket is. After the children have shouted at red telling her where the basket is, Red and the animals join arms and sing “I’m off to see my Grandma” which is a changed version of “I’m off to see the wizard” from “The wizard of Oz”.

“I’m off to see my Grandma,

My Grandma who lives in the wood
I hear she sick and feels a bit ikk
oh, what am I going to do.
I'll take her some treat right into woods
And make her feel better just like she should
Because, because, because, because, because
Her name is little red riding hood
We're off to see her grandma
Her grandma who live in the woods”

Me, Tom, Carl, Dom, Toby and Freya then all become trees in a forest as the Wolf then appears on stage and another song starts. This song is a change version of “Mr Grinch” from “Grinch” but is changed to “Mr Wolf”.

Trees: “You’re an mean one Mr Wolf
You really are a fiend
You're as cuddly as a hedgehog
And as charming as a mouse
Mr wolf!
You're nothing but a bad kitty with furry black tail”
Wolf: "I'm no kitty"
Trees: "You're monster Mr wolf
Your hearts an empty soul
Your brain is full of spiders
you've got evil in your soul
Mr wolf!
I wouldn't touch you with a 13 and half foot branch"
Wolf: "Booo"

The song ends and the wolf hides as Meg runs on Lost and confused, she then asks the children what way to go but as she asks the children what way to go some of the trees point in one direction and the rest point in the other direction. The wolf then enters and all the trees point in the other direction to the wolf and the children shout at Red to run away, as she goes to leave the wolf runs to the other side of the stage so the trees then point in the other direction and the children tell Red to run the other way. This repeats until the wolf then runs up to Red.

Todays rehearsal went very well today as one of our first starting on "Little Red" as we have managed to create 2 songs as well as half of the performance today which is a very good starting point. to improve we need to do just as good next lesson so that we can finish staging this story and just focus on perfecting the story with the audience interaction and child friendly humor we would like in our piece.   

Our show

Today we started to look in more detail of what stories we wanted to perform, we all choose a story we researched and pitched it to the class to see who else liked it as well as coming up with ideas we could use to perform the stories. The stories we had were Cap'O'Rushes, the gingerbread man, six swans, Jack and the beanstalk, goldIlocks, golden goose, ugly duckling, Thumbelina and little red riding hood. We talked through each one decided that we didn't want to do Thumbelina, golden goose, Cap'O'Rushes,  or six swans as theses stories were in our opinion too long and complicated for little children. We also decided not to do the gingerbread man as we believed the story was to short for our performance. We agreed that we would we do little red riding hood and Jack and the beanstalk but we couldn't decide our last story between the ugly duckling and goldilocks. We did a group vote on the 2 and chose goldilocks as it works with our other stories being based around little children in magical places. Our running order became red riding hood first, then goldilocks and finally jack and the beanstalk to end our show.

Stories

The Gingerbread Man

The Gingerbread Man is a fairy tale about a Gingerbread man's escape from various pursuers and his eventual demise between the jaws of a fox.

In the 1875 St. Nicholas tale, a childless old woman bakes a gingerbread man who leaps from her oven and runs away. The woman and her husband give chase but fail to catch him. The gingerbread man then outruns several farm workers and farm animals while taunting them with the phrase:

Run, run as fast as you can!

You can't catch me. I'm the Gingerbread Man!

The tale ends with The Gingerbread Man relaxes and letting his guard down so that a fox could snatch and devours the gingerbread man who cries as he's devoured, "I'm quarter gone...I'm half gone...I'm three-quarters gone...I'm all gone!”

How the Dragon was tricked

An older brother was jealous of his younger brother and one day tied him to a tree to be rid of him. An old, humpbacked shepherd saw the young brother and asked him why he was tied to a tree; the younger brother said it was to straighten out his back, and persuaded the shepherd to be tied there in his place. Then he drove off the sheep. He persuaded a horse boy and a driver of oxen to come with him. He played many tricks and became famous.
The king captured him and promised to spare the young brothers life if he brought him the Dragon's flying horse. He went and tried three times to steal the horse. Each time it neighed, alerting the dragon, but the third time the dragon, annoyed at being awoken, beat the horse. The fourth time, the horse did not neigh, the boy led him out, and once out, he mounted and rode off, taunting the dragon.
The king then demanded the dragon's bed-covering. The boy went and tried to hook the blanket during the night, but the dragon said his wife was hogging them, and pulled them, pulling the boy down. The dragon tied him and told his wife to cook him the next day while he went to church. When he returned, they would eat him. The dragoness untied the young brother so she could cut his throat more easier, but the young brother cut her throat and threw her into the oven. He stole the bed-covering and returned to the king.
The king then demanded the dragon itself. The boy demanded two years to let his beard grow as a disguise, and the king agreed. When the two years were up, the youth changed clothing with a beggar and found the dragon making a box, in order to trap him in it. The youth said that the box was too small. The dragon assured him that it was big enough even for himself and wriggled in to show him. The youth clapped on the top and told him to see if the youth would be able to escape. The dragon tried as hard as it could, and could not get out.
The youth brought him back to the king. The king wanted to see the dragon. He was careful enough to open a hole too small for the dragon to escape, but not enough to keep it from biting him and swallowing him whole. The youth married the king's daughter and became king in his place.

Fables

Bee-Keeper and the Bees:

This story is about a Bee-Keeper and his Bee’s he looks after to make him honey every month and in returns gives the Bees a home. One day the Bee-Keeper went to bed early. A Thief found his way into an apiary during tonight when the Bee-keeper was sleeping, and stole all the honey.

When the Keeper woke up and found the hives empty, he was very much upset and stood staring at them for some time. Before long the bees came back from gathering honey and finding their hives overturned and the Keeper standing by, they made for him with their stings thinking the Bee-keeper had broken there home and had taken their honey early.

The Bee’s all stung the Bee-Keeper until he cried, "You ungrateful scoundrels, you let the thief who stole my honey get off scot-free, and then you go and sting me who have always taken such care of you!" The moral of the story is, "Things are not always what they seem."

Suitability:

This story is suitable for young children as it has good themes for young children like animals and a moral to its story. There are simple characters to this story so that the children could easily understand the characters without getting confused, this story also contains animals which young children aged 5-7 would enjoy. The story also has an important moral the children to learn as it is “things are not always what they seem” which is good for young children to learn so they don’t jump to conclusions in their everyday life’s. There is also a lesson for the children to learn from the thief as it would teach the children not to steal because of the damage it could causes to other people.

This story could be told through a narrator and the rest of us acting out the story through movement by showing how the Bee act in their hives as well as a movement piece for when the Bee-keeper is stung by the Bees. We could also show our story by using cheerful music for when the bees go out hunting for honey as well as physical movement to create the flowers the bees get the pollen.

The Old Lion and the Fox:

An old Lion, whose teeth and claws were so worn that it was not so easy for him to get food as in his younger days, pretended that he was sick. He took care to let all his neighbours know about it, and then lay down in his cave to wait for visitors. And when they came to offer him their sympathy, he ate them up one by one. The Fox came too, but he was very cautious about it. Standing at a safe distance from the cave, he inquired politely after the Lion's health. The Lion replied that he was very ill indeed, and asked the Fox to step in for a moment. But Master Fox very wisely stayed outside, thanking the Lion very kindly for the invitation. The fox saw the tracks led into the den and not away, so he then tricked the lion into closing his eyes and rescued the animals trapped in the cave. The moral of the story is, “Using your head keeps you from making foolish or disastrous mistakes.”

Suitability:

This story is also suitable for young children as this story is about animals which young children aged 5-7 will enjoy, the story is also unrealistic which means children will enjoy it more as it will entertain there imagination. The characters of the story are interesting like the old lion tricking other animals into his home so he could eat them, I like this because I think it can offer an interesting idea for a performance where we could see several animals fall for the same trick of the lion which would be a piece of repetition and would help show a young audience that the lion is a bad animal and is good a tricking others. The story then shows us a smart fox which we could show by him outsmarting the lion which I think little children would enjoy as it would show them the benefits of learning so they could become smart. The morale of the story is also a good thing for little children to learn as it will help them use their head more instead of being silly.

The hare and the tortoise:

A hare boasts to the other animals about how fast he can run. When none of them responds initially to his challenge for a race, he taunts them that they are too scared even to try.

When tortoise speaks up and takes on the challenge, the hare scoffs that he won’t even waste his time racing the slowest creature in the world. Eventually though, he agrees to the race in a week's time. The tortoise spends the week in training, but continues to move very slowly, and the other animals wonder if the race is a good idea. Nevertheless, there is a large crowd of animals on the day of the race. The race begins and the hare roars off, while the tortoise plods along slow and steady. Deciding he is so far ahead the hare decides to have a sleep in the sun. However, when he wakes, the tortoise is nearing the finish line and takes and unlikely victory. The moral of the story is, “Slow and steady wins the race.”

Suitability:

This story is suitable for young children ages 5-7 as the story is unrealistic which will feed the young children’s imagination and with the characters being animals’ helps to make the story creative as animals don’t act like humans so children would enjoy it more. For the story we could do a movement/ dance for the race between the Hare and the Tortoise showing how the Hare overpowers the Tortoise at first but then gets cocky which causes him to lose the race to the tortoise. The morale of the story is suitable and useful for young children to learn as the moral is “Slow and steady wins the race.” This is a useful morale for children to know as it teaches them not to rush anything they work on, so that they can get the best out of what they have worked on. This story would also help us explore creating environments using our body so we could create the trees, flowers and other inanimate objects.

Story Telling Skills Part 4

Today in lesson we worked on telling stories to selected age ranges and not just little children. We spent our lesson practicing telling stories to little children again as a warm up but then was given a select age rang and type of person like men at a bar or a group of teenage girls at sixth form we were also only allowed to use our diction and not any gestures or movements. We were allowed to say any part of a story as long as what we said would keep the interest of our target audiences given to us, we then had to try and tell the story but we could anything we wanted to tell the story except our diction which made this much more difficult task. This exercise was also different as one of us was now in charge of deciding what we said was suitable for our target audience, this helped us to not only practice perform to our target audience but also to identify the key traits of performing to our target audience by watching others perform which will improve our own audiences. After this we then worked on this again but this time with one long story that our audience for would keep changing so we would have to adapt our dialogue to the new audience, this became harder due to the constant change of audience and a new rule saying u must wait for 3 people to tell the story before I could speak again. Finally we then had to try and tell a story that was designed for an older audience but to little children in a way that wouldn’t tell them the mature content but still the story like if “someone was killed”, we would say that ”a person forced someone to have a long nap”. We all had to try and say similar things to this but in the way that was suitable for our audience of little children

Story Telling Skills Part 3

Today in lesson we worked on creating and telling stories through movement. We started the lesson by being given several scenario’s we had to move to like we one was that we were a mole digging around underground, so we had to move how we think that the mole would move. We were given several things similar to this that tested our range in movement ranging from moving like animals to at one point moving how we feel a chocolate bar would move, the purpose of this was to get us to stop thinking or being self-conscious about what we how we move and to just do what feels natural to us. Another thing we practiced was our special awareness as we walked around the room with our eyes squinted shut so we could hardly see and walk around the room with our arms out to the side without crashing into each other, we were told to stop and close our eyes fully and lean as far forward as we could without falling, to me this felt like an exercise to help us to control our bodies. Next we were given a list a scenario/place like the arctic and had to create this place by becoming the environment like for the arctic we could have been snow, so we would have to show our interpretation of snow using our bodies. We did with several locations and one of us was given a character to be in the scenario. The first scenario was a garden and a rabbit, the second was the sky with a little blue bird, the third was a amazon rain forest and a monkey, the fourth was a polar bear in the artic, the fifth was a volcano and lava and the last one was a snowflake in a storm. Finally we split into two groups and had to show a story of two scenarios, one group had to show a leaf that fell from a tree and was blown away but found its way back one day, my group was given a lonely snow cloud serrated by normal clouds and how it tries to join them but can’t. Each group performed these two scenario’s using all we had learned over the space of today’s lesson for movement, control and special awareness.