Thursday night came quickly; a long workweek flew by Thursday night was here before I knew it. I was tired from a long week at school and to be honest did not have the energy to go entertain middle school students for an hour. I was predicting that the middle school kids would have no interest in Shakespeare; I thought they would behave poorly and I thought they would not listen to me. I knew I did not have a choice to skip the practice and I knew I could count on the kids being excited to see me. I hopped into Natalie’s car and we all headed down to Boushall Middle School.
I was so surprised when I walked into the building. Higher Achievement was so organized and when the kids arrived they were all so respectful. They all listened to the rules, were quiet when they were supposed to be and we nice to each other. After the welcome and introduction given by one of the head workers of Higher Achievement, we split up into groups and were assigned our 15 students.
Our 15 students were 5th graders and were surprisingly so excited to be putting on a Shakespeare play. This took me by surprise; I was not expecting to have this much enthusiasm from the 5th graders. We started off by introducing what we would be doing the next 8 weeks then played some icebreakers. Once we were more familiar with the kids and the kids got to know us a little bit more, we showed them the cartoon video of Macbeth. After watching this, the kids were even more excited. So many people wanted to be Macbeth and the girls jumped at being witches.
The hour flew by so quickly. Overall the first meeting was a success. I am relieved and happy that the kids were so enthusiastic; hopefully they keep this motivation going! The kids gave me so much energy when I was there, even though I was exhausted from the week. I am already looking forward to our second meeting with them.