The Clubhouse at the Playhouse

 

 Training and prep are finally over and the children have arrived, at least some of them. Most schools are not out yet so I am only occupied with camps in the morning. It's been an unusual week because of this, yet adorable. I'm working with kindergartners and since its the second day their shyness is fading and personalities are shining. This camp involves me working with one of the veteran teachers at the Playhouse named Carol Taylor and she has a wonderful way with puppets. Icabod is the elf that visits the classroom everyday and helps Carol tell the children stories, they love when Icabod helps them out with a hard question or asks them a silly one. Also, I forgot to mention that each day all the activities for this camp take place in a fort, which we call the Clubhouse, that the children build everyday. There's a secret handshake and a fun song for the Clubhouse that I got to make up to the tune of, "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?". It goes like this:

Do you wanna build a Clubhouse?
A Clubhouse at the Playhouse!
It will be a lot of fun
Everyone will want to come
To the PLAYHOUSE!

We tell stories for the children to act out and create a fun new craft everyday. Today we made Russian Maryshka dolls out of card stock, it was surprisingly simple for such an unconventional idea. The children are excited to take the dolls home tomorrow but they're even more excited to get the special treat of seeing Cat in the Hat on Friday morning. Now my task for the week is to figure out how all the children can make a craft related to this, I'm thinking their very own Cat in the Hat hats out of butcher paper and paper plates with custom designs (created by the children of course!)

The morning camps have been rather fun but as soon as their done my afternoons resemble the prep work we've been doing for the kids. This afternoon I gave a tour of the Playhouse with the other interns and we also organized games to play with a group of daycare kids that came to visit. It was interesting to see the staff that came with the children because the kids were not "troublemakers" and while the staff was kind, there was what seemed to be a lot of them and they corrected every questionable behavior the children made without realizing that it was more important for the children to learn what the rules taught in our games instead of being chastised for making an honest mistake. It made me realize that theater has always emphasized trying your best but that making mistakes was okay and you'll get a second chance while the outside world often teaches children that perfection is the only way and if you're individuality hinders that strive towards societies' standard of perfection than its better to be like everyone else instead of yourself. It was frustrating for me and the other interns to be leading games and having the daycare instructors over correct the children, not only because honest mistakes are okay during the Playhouse games but also because there are moments during certain games where its okay to let the children run and scream for the five seconds it takes them to go back to their spots. The games are actually designed that way and we purposefully play them because those brief moments that allow the children to burst with energy means that they will be able to play the quiet, slower paced games that require more patience and attention for longer. Seeing the discipline style that contrasted our training as Playhouse interns today really helped us understand the value in not having perfection be the end goal and letting kids be kids.

So after learning what the intern I don't want to be looks like, it was nice to head home and get to crack down on my 9 credits of summer class. The only problem was my 9 week old kitten with the most ironic name in the world, Harmony. As I was working on homework she decided to play a game of peek-a-boo where she hides behind my laptop screen as I am typing. Which is adorable, except the "boo" part of peek-a-boo where she actually gives me quite a scare by biting the edge of my laptop's touchscreen as she tries to catch a glimpse of me. The more I toss her on the bed next to me every time she bites something she shouldn't the more she comes at me with the fervent energy of a toddler who is convinced your reaction means you want to play harder. She seems to have finally fallen asleep for the night though, so I guess I can finally call it a night and get ready to deal with not only Harmony's antics tomorrow but also the Clubhouse.