Playhouse TV

Just finished a week of "Playhouse TV: Night time Television" for 5th and 6th graders. It was a good week with an enthusiastic group of 23 kids. The week was spent writing and rehearsing a half hour tv news program with the kids. We split the kids into 3 groups; news, commercials/movie trailers, and promotions, the teacher and each intern spent the week with one group. I worked with the commercials/movie trailers group. I really enjoyed helping the kids come up with ideas and learn to collaborate together as they invented products to advertise and movies to make. I tried to let them work as independently as I could, often telling a child who had an idea "don't tell me, tell your company members," but I had to step in when ideas got a little wild. After writing on most of Monday I took their scripts home and typed them up, editing where it was needed, but wanting to keep as much of what they wrote as I could. The rest of the week we spent directing them; blocking and rehearsing their scenes. The kids memorized everything remarkably fast, allowing for more time to run and tweak some things, which was perfect because we ended up doing the entire show live. We had originally intended to do part on video, part live to match the "Daytime TV" class, but due to technical difficulties, it was not possible for us to do so. Overall it was a good week, I worked a lot more as a leader this week rather than a teacher's assistant, which was good practice for this upcoming week, in which I and another intern are teachers, not assistants, in "Theatre Survivor Week," a class designed and taught by 2 of the 5 interns for grades 7-10.