Last Show Rehearsals

Even though  don't have mentorship any longer I still have a persona commitment to the school and the kids to help out, which I've been doing since freshman year.

The final show is coming up and it is making me reminisce of my last show! All the eighth graders are preparing for high school as I'm preparing for college, making me feel old!

So I am currently watching over them and helping with rehearsals as they prepare to end the year with a bang. 

2014 Piano Recital and GALA Art Show

Every year CPSOA has a piano recital and an art show to show what the kids have been working on all year. This is part of what we have been preparing for in mentorship. Here are a few pictures of the students I have been working with this year performing their end of the year piano and violin pieces, as well as a few pictures of the art they very proudly showcased last Sunday. 

This is one of the 8th graders, Alexis. She had one of the most difficult pieces, and performed it flawlessly.

One of the art walls; this was the Africa themed area. Each year CPSOA dedicates time and classes to educating the kids on different cultures around the world. 

These are a few of the violinists at CPSOA, note the posture. That was very hard to work on.

Another wall at the art show, this was taking pieces of the school's logo and showing how they are pieces of the school, could be small or big but nevertheless important.

Purple Group Pianists (8th through 6th graders)

Blue Group Pianists (5th through 3rd) 

Purple Group Pianists (3rd through Kindergarten) 

Extra Post: Perspective

I have been looking into studies and deeper research obviously since the senior project is starting to wrap up, but when I can no longer find anything and I feel like I have lost my focus I always turn back to the site I first found.

This site always brings up my spirits when I feel down about my subject, The stories I read and the videos I watch always encourage me and show me how important the arts are not only to child but to the world. It makes my work with my mentor and my personal life experiences just that much more important to me; I never understood how privileged I was, but after reading the struggles or how simply watching a choir made a person feel or change it makes me so thankful for all I have been offered. It also puts the work at my mentorship into perspective, sometimes I don't feel useful but then I know that simply being there and encouraging them I'm helping the kids life even if it is in the smallest way.

Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth

http://youtu.be/VTRHuNjQwx8

This is the video of the kids of Creative Planet School of the Arts singing. This is the entire school which consists of about 80 kids in all ranging from kindergarten to eighth grade. 

Frozen: Let It Go!

I told a few people I would post a clip from one of the numbers "Let It Go" so here it is.

This is from the rehearsal! 

Show days!

Lasst weekend Friday and Saturday were the show days, and boy what a weekend it was! Being a teacher's assistant/ teacher to the students is very tasking ( props to all teachers out there ) it seemed like such a long weekend, but it felt so amazing to see the kids so happy and joyful at the end... Even if the road there was extremely stressful!

These are from the rehearsals on Monday the 6th they had the set for the play set up in the fellowship hall so the kids could practice on.

This is a picture of the set, which is always amazing! There is more to it, like the floats on the right had side and other windows and signs that are able to be seen because they can only work in the theater itself.

This is a video of the boomwhacker number. (not the full thing of course) 

This is one of the rehearsal pictures when we were at the Baldwin Park Performing Arts Center, Mr. Billy is in the middle directing the kids as the three "Divas" sing "Let It Snow" on the floats (a part I once did *tears*) and the younger kids dance in front of them.

Rehearsal is an important aspect of performing, especially when working with younger children,  so there was a lot of it! Sadly I had to work backstage helping the kindergarten through second graders change and get on stage for their numbers, the teachers really needed help and they were thankful for me, so I wasn't able to see the show or get good video of it but I did ask a friend in the audience to get some clips so I'll be posting those shortly!

 

These are the kids I helped backstage; they are in their bird costumes,which they couldn't hang or put on for themselves, but how could you not help those faces. They opened the show! 

Monthly Post

Well this month was a busy one for the kids at my mentorship because of the big show that was supposed to happen on December 20th but because of all the things that have to get done in the month school wise it was pushed back to January the 10th! Which means more time to rehearse but also much more stress for the teachers who now have prepare for another week of "hell". We call it hell week because of the back to back dress rehearsals the kids will have and all day rehearsal so yes that means starting from about 10 am to 6 pm with breaks to do school work in between. I won't be able to attend all rehearsal of course, but i get to help the younger kids back stage and watch over them during the show madness! That's going to be my main responsibility and I'm very excited to see all the kids so proud and excited during the show, I'll post the dates and times when I know them, right now they're up in the air. But mentorship has been going very well so far.

Monthly Post

At my mentorship the students perform twice a year and the Christmas show is coming up! So the rehearsals have become more frequent and more rigorous. I used to participate in these because I went to this school, obviously, so its very exciting watching them progress everyday! So far they have learned all the songs for the show, but next comes dividing up the solos(parts of songs sung by one individual). What's the most exciting is I get to help decide who gets what solo. This deliberation won't take place for about another two weeks, but it will be a difficult process. I think this helps a child; showing them that they won't get everything they want whether it's a solo in a song or a job when you're older, but that life will go on, and it is not the end of the world. It's not the best part obviously, but its a process! The best part will be watching them succeed on stage, which will be different for me because I'm not usually backstage, but its a nice change. Can't wait till then. I'll post the show dates, times, and prices if anyone wants to attend!

Monthly Post

The book NurtureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman helped me a lot in my research because it gave techniques and thinks that parents and teachers should use with their kids. It also gave experiments that showed proof of what they did and how effective it was in helping a child learn at a more appropriate speed for them, and with the most advantages to them. It was all together just a good read; I would recommend i to anyone even if you don't have kids or teach, its a cool insight to a child's mind.

Monthly Post

In my mentorship I work with kids, last week I watched and assisted a Choir one class with children who were five through eight. Before they started singing the normal warm up songs, Mr. Billy (the teacher) had them sing songs off a chart with sounds so they can properly pronounce things.
He had one volunteer read the sound, one read the title, one read the song lyrics, and then they all sang the song together when i turned on the music. This was very encouraging for the kids because they felt as though they had taught and led the class with the song.
For example a sound would be "ake" a student might say "ace" and they would be corrected then another student would say the sound correctly and the class would repeat, and even though some got it wrong they got a chance to correct themselves afterwards.
It was nice working with the kids and seeing how happy they were to be able to sing the song correctly because they first learned the sounds. Though all the kids did not want to participate at the beginning by the end of the year all of the students will have mastered these sounds and songs, and will happily repeat them.

Mentorship

Boomwhackers
Over the summer I worked with a few different groups of students but this was the oldest group of students(about 12-14) I had the pleasure of taking choir classes with and helping. This is a short video of an activity we had to do with the boomwhackers, its the song "That's What Makes You Beautiful" and we had about ten minutes to practice before this.
The students at Creative Planet, where I mentored, are very talented in singing, dancing, acting, and drawing and they can really take anything you throw at them, even making music. This is a small part of what I did over the summer; it is just a fun part of the choir class I participated in.