Last week Higher Achievement hosted a potluck for the students and their families so we didn’t get to work with the kids, but I have been reflecting about the experience over the past week. I had low expectations for how excited they would be about it from the beginning, but I have been blown away by how enthusiastic the kids always seem to be when we come. Especially since we come at the end of a very long day, the kids have been awesome about still being energetic and still giving us their attention.

I think of how much they’ve improved too. At the beginning, they constantly stumbled over Shakespeare’s language, but now, they have a much better grasp on it. They may not be perfect, but they’ve impressed me with how far they’ve come. We have a Macbeth who speaks his lines in a British accent and many different witch voices, and I’m excited to try to get them to act a little more in the next couple weeks before the performance so when the night comes, they can impress everyone else just as they’ve impressed me.

This week at Boushall Higher Achievement was the annual Thanksgiving feast so rehearsal was cancelled. This was a bummer for us because we could have used the extra time to practice! But hopefully the kids are practicing their lines on their own. I wish we had some way of contacting them to remind them. We are also missing this week as well because it is actual Thanksgiving. That is two Thursdays in a row that we will not have practice. I think we only have one more practice before the show!! That is crazy! We need to gauge costume ideas, make up ideas, and make sure the kids know what they are doing the following Thursday! This will be our last rehearsal before the big show!

We started this week off with a classic game of bull frog! The kids love this game; they love to find creative ways to act out dying! The game started off going well as we all sat in a circle on the ground, but as kids started “dying” they refused to lie on the dirty ground so we honestly could not tell who had been killed and who had not been killed. So it did not end perfectly, but the kids still enjoyed it and had a blast like always.

After warming up the children’s acting skills we split into small groups based on the scenes we were going to practice acting out. Our Macbeth once again out shined everyone else. He is so good at reading, speaking in his British accent, and acting. He is not afraid to move around the stage, do silly things on the stage, and he really gets into his character. He inspired the others in his group act as best as they could. Some students were shy and just stood on the stage, but once they saw how energetic Macbeth was, they started to get some energy and move around stage. The project is finally all coming together. I am nervous because next week, there is a Thanksgiving Feast, so we will not have rehearsal. We sent the kids home with scripts in hopes they will practice their acting skills and lines!

Today, we did not have rehearsal due to it being Thanksgiving week. Last week, we talked to our participants and many were going to be out of town so we decided to resume rehearsal next week. I sent out an email today reminding everyone we would not be meeting.

For next week, we will need to go over our part from start to finish. We have not done a full run through from start to finish with blocking. We will continue to work on the blocking. Seeing our part as a whole will help us figure out transitions and how the blocking looks as a whole. Hopefully, everyone can be present in order to see how the play looks as a whole!