The Flower and the Tornado
At Esme’s preschool, the kids will tell stories, which the teachers write down into books, and then the kids illustrate. A month or two ago, Esme came up with one called The Flower and the Tornado. Apparently, tornadoes were very popular in her class. Somehow the class decided to put together a show based on the book. (It’s a very student-directed environment. One kid gets interested in fairies, and for the next two months they plan a fairy party.)
We’ve been hearing about this “show” (we weren’t really sure whether it was a play or what) for a while, and all the preparation which goes in to it — the set design, the costumes, etc. Finally, the flyer announcing the play arrives and yesterday afternoon we joined the other parents for its encore presentation. In fact, the play was such a success (and so short) they did it twice. The video below is of the first performance; you’ll recognize our daughter’s trademark cry when one of the tornadoes crashes into her, playing a flower. (Apparently this happened in rehearsals as well. The boys in the class got very excited playing tornadoes. Hmm, 3-5 year old boys getting overly excited and rambunctious. Is anyone surprised?) It’s a bit hard to see, because there’s a bunch of kids, and ours is on the tiny side, but Esme is third flower from the right. (There are 7 girls in the class; 6 were flowers. No boys were. Is anyone surprised by this?)
The play was followed by treats in honor of Esme’s classmate Amelia, who was celebrating her 4th birthday. The kids seemed just as excited about the big cookie cake as their performance. Then we tried to get a picture of the “the girls” (since the 7 girls are way outnumbered by the boys, they tend to stick together, so it’s always “me and Amelia and Sophia and Lula and Ella and Finley and Peyton…”), and hopefully one of the dozen-or-so pictures came out.
If you’re reading this in your email, you might want to view this post on the web site for easier viewing of the images. Also, particularly if you want to see the pictures in the right order (so you can read the story which the play was based on, and see Esme’s illustrations), you can always go to the SmugMug gallery, which will also let you to download the photos or order prints.
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May 14th, 2012 at 7:31 am
That was adorable – so very well done. Thanks for sending it to me.