Comenius Fairy Tale Project – continued

In this weeks workshop the students started to map out our modern version of Jack and the Beanstalk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They had great fun pretending to be armchairs, plasma 3D TV’s and even an apple tree!

 

By the end of the session we had managed to run through the whole performance.

 

Next week we firm up parts and tighten up the performance.

 

Looking good!

 

 

 

 

 

Jack and the Beanstalk: Modern version from ideas from Y7 Comenius group.

Jack and his mother live in a small ground floor flat which they rent from their landlord who lives in the penthouse at the top of the building.  They are struggling to find money to pay the rent and so Jack’s mother tells him to sell his comics, his computer and his old Nokia. He goes to Peterborough market and is given an old MP3 in exchange. His mother is furious with Jack and throws the MP3 out of the window into the vegetable patch.

 

The next morning Jack wakes and hears a stream of music outside. He decides to see where it is coming from and goes into the lift. This is a talking lift and it announces his arrival on the top floor where the landlord, the market trader, lives with his wife. She meets him and takes him to the kitchen where he sees a huge turkey being prepared for the evening meal. He walks around the penthouse and in one room he notices some of his comics, his Slimline PS and his computer games. He realises he has been swindled by the market trader, who has just come home and yells at his wife.  Jack  helps himself to a Rolex watch,  an IPad and the large turkey in the kitchen  so he and his mother can something else besides baked beans on toast.

 

The talking lift shouts to the market trader that Jack is leaving with stolen goods. Jack smashes the lift controls when he is on the ground floor to silence the lift and hears a terrible scream and bang! The market trader, in his haste to pursue Jack, had fallen down the lift shaft and died.

 

The residents call the police who arrest Jack. He is taken to court and gets an ASBO for burglary.  The market trader’s wife said the man tripped and fell down the lift shaft so Jack was never blamed for his death.

 

Jack took over the market stall and is now a very rich man.

 

The latest Comenius Project -funded by the Education and Culture DG Lifelong Learning Programme is based upon Fairy Tales – and as soon as I heard that I knew that the MRC should be involved.

 

It is a two year project working with some of our students (11-18) from Thomas Deacon Academy and other schools across Europe,- Lincolnshire UK; Germany; and Slovakia.

 

 

Comenius Fairy Tale Project – continued

In last weeks workshop the students investigated the meaning and importance of fairy tales, and looked more closely at  a few fairy tales including Jack and the Beanstalk.

 

 

 

This weeks workshop allowed the students to think of how they could create a modern day version of Jack. With new symbols to replace the beans, the stalk, the giant, the chicken and the harp etc.

 

They then split into groups of four to create a short play of their new version of Jack.

 

 

 

Each group performed their version to the rest of the group. They all had some great ideas – Jackie instead of Jack, a talking lift, an music stream, a wandering narrator and lots of Ipods and Xboxes! (and violent death scenes from the boys!). 

Each performance drew laughs from the ‘crowd’ and the best ideas were merged into a new version of the Jack and the Beanstalk story.

 

 

Here is a sneak preview of our version combining all the best bits. 

At the next workshop the students will start to create a script and assign roles.

 

Jack and the Beanstalk: Modern version from ideas from Y7 Comenius group.

Jack and his mother live in a small ground floor flat which they rent from their landlord who lives in the penthouse at the top of the building.  They are struggling to find money to pay the rent and so Jack’s mother tells him to sell his comics, his computer and his old Nokia. He goes to Peterborough market and is given an old MP3 in exchange. His mother is furious with Jack and throws the MP3 out of the window into the vegetable patch.

 

The next morning Jack wakes and hears a stream of music outside. He decides to see where it is coming from and goes into the lift. This is a talking lift and it announces his arrival on the top floor where the landlord, the market trader, lives with his wife. She meets him and takes him to the kitchen where he sees a huge turkey being prepared for the evening meal. He walks around the penthouse and in one room he notices some of his comics, his Slimline PS and his computer games. He realises he has been swindled by the market trader, who has just come home and yells at his wife.  Jack  helps himself to a Rolex watch,  an IPad and the large turkey in the kitchen  so he and his mother can something else besides baked beans on toast.

 

The talking lift shouts to the market trader that Jack is leaving with stolen goods. Jack smashes the lift controls when he is on the ground floor to silence the lift and hears a terrible scream and bang! The market trader, in his haste to pursue Jack, had fallen down the lift shaft and died.

 

The residents call the police who arrest Jack. He is taken to court and gets an ASBO for burglary.  The market trader’s wife said the man tripped and fell down the lift shaft so Jack was never blamed for his death.

 

Jack took over the market stall and is now a very rich man.

 

The latest Comenius Project -funded by the Education and Culture DG Lifelong Learning Programme is based upon Fairy Tales – and as soon as I heard that I knew that the MRC should be involved.

 

It is a two year project working with some of our students (11-18) from Thomas Deacon Academy and other schools across Europe,- Lincolnshire UK;Germany; and Slovakia. 

 

Comenius Fairy Tale Project

The latest Comenius Project -funded by the Education and Culture DG Lifelong Learning Programme is based upon Fairy Tales – and as soon as I heard that I knew that the MRC should be involved.

 

It is a two year project working with some of our students (11-18) from Thomas Deacon Academy and other schools across Europe,- Lincolnshire UK; Germany; and Slovakia.

 

Fairy Tales with princesses, wicked stepmothers and wise kings are an integral part of childhood. The project covers three stages – Research and Investigation, Skill Development and Enterprise, Presentation and Evaluation, and includes a range of activities for students to enhance literacy and communication skills and stimulate an interest in other people, places and cultures.

 

The recent workshop allowed the students to investigate the meaning and importance of fairy tales, and look more closely at  a few fairy tales including Jack and the Beanstalk; The Golden Goose, Baba Yaga and others.

 

 

They had to look at who the main characters were; where the story takes place; main plot; what the ‘key message’ might be and look at the symbols and motifs in the stories.

 

This is all preparation for the next workshop when they write a script for a performance of a modern version of “Jack and the Beanstalk”