Legally Blonde!

This past week, the music and drama departments at FHS put on the Central Florida premiere of Legally Blonde the Musical!  It was an absolutely outstanding production in all ways!  I was so excited and proud to see the students I work with everyday displaying their many talents on the stage and in the pit.  Having done no work on the show to prepare it and having never heard or seen it before, I had no expectation good or bad going in, and I am excited to say that it was by far the best high school musical production I have either seen or been a part of!  I could not stop beaming throughout the show as I watched my students in a different environment than the classroom I see them in everyday.  Part of me felt bad during the show because I could not contain my laughter at most of their lines and characters as I know them so well outside of the show.  Luckily several students mentioned that they heard my rather unique laugh and were encouraged by it throughout the show.  You could tell that the students were extremely proud of the work they put in to the production, and while last week was rather draining for them, the product was well worth it!

Now for an update on South Africa: if you read in my last post, I am teaching a South African song to the All-School chorus by rote.  By Friday, they were singing the first half of the piece in four-part harmony, something this group has never done before!  It brought me great joy to see them put so much effort into learning the piece and pride to see them doing it well and with passion!  They are clearly starting to enjoy even more the work we do and are connecting with it personally.  As part of this process, I am also working on body percussion so that when I teach them the dance, they will feel comfortable working with their bodies.  This has proven to be one of the best parts because they feel like they are on a step team or some sort of hip hop group.  They love mimicking my beats and are thrilled when I ask them to create their own.  The best part?  I keep them thinking by asking them to notate their patterns musically once we are done learning them, which they are perfectly happy to do since I let them "break it down" for part of class!

There are only two official weeks left in this student teaching before graduation, but luckily the journey does not end there as I will be finishing out the academic year at FHS!  I am extremely excited about the things to come for this program, starting tomorrow!!  Keep an eye out for a pretty amazing blog post in the next few days with info on a yet another life-changing experience for the kids!