End Of Term One

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Term 2 will commence immediately after the school holidays, the week beginning April 23^rd 2012

All children presently enrolled in classes are automatically re-enrolled.

Next term is a very exciting one as we have the 

Parent Day Presentation.

You, your family and friends are invited to come and enjoy a cross-section of the curriculum the students have prepared. Along with speech and movement we will be performing mini-scripts, plays and other exciting items. Come and celebrate your children’s achievements, see how much they have developed in confidence and verbal communication skills.

Plus we will be presenting Achievement Plaques and Certificates to children who have completed one year and 100 or 200 lesson milestones.

 NEXT TERM STARTS 23 April 2012

Have a wonderful break! See you next term!

        

What ....... Week Six ...... Already!!!!!

Yes it is. Only 3 more weeks and the Easter Bunny will be making his way to your house.

But before he does, we still have plenty of fun activities to get through.

I have been very impressed by the improvement of your ab-libbing skills. This is one of the hardest parts of our lessons to learn because sometimes you might not be able to think of anything to say, or feel a little bit shy. Don't worry. Learning how to ab-lib is important because it means we can set scenes in a play, react to what the other characters are saying and if someone forgets their words it means we can fill the space by making up our own sentences so the play can go on and the audience won't know that something is not quite right.

Now this brings me to speech. It is great to see you all working hard at our speech exercises. I know these may sometimes seem boring, but they are very important and must be practiced. This is so we can train our voices to be nice and clear, with good beginning and ending of words with nice sounds so that when you stand up in assembly to speak, you will be able to be heard right at the back of the room, without using a microphone.

Moving on to   ..... movement. This week we are learning 4 types of movement - Even and Uneven movements and Smooth and Jerky movements. When we have practiced these individually we will make a dance incorporating all 4. You'll have to listen very carefully for the tambour to give you clues when to change.

Improvisations this week are: Lower - "Sorry it was an accident" and for Uppers "Exploring the Wodonga Caves"

For the last activity of the lesson the lowers will be showing me the difference between behaving and eating politely and horribly while in a restaurant.
The Uppers will be making up a snippet starting with the sentence "Don't forget to come next Wednesday".

See you at class

Bye for now

Hi Everyone

Week Three already
This term is flying past.

Our Dance Drama is the main focus of our lessons this week.

Over the last two weeks we have been learning about locomotion (fast and slow), moving between different styles of locomotion (walking, skipping, hopping etc), working with partners and making our bodies look happy or sad.
This week we put all that together with "The Villagers and the Tyrant".
Some of us will be villagers playing in the sun and being happy, until the Tyrant appears and starts to demand that we pay him some money. At first we are scared (and show this by sad, unhappy bodies) and give him what he wants. After a while we realise that he is not that scary and gang together to sneak up on the Tyrant and give him a scare instead. The Tyrant goes from being loud and scary to being unhappy and sad.

Of course we show all this using our Mime and Movement skills - no talking - just lots of facial and body expressions. And of course every class is different in the portrayal of the story.
I can't wait to see how your class does it!

Lower Primary classes our Improvisation this week is about having "Fun in the Sun" at the beach. Don't forget to bring your props.
Upper Primary, our Improvisation is called "The Bus Accident".  We might have to practice our first aid skills to help the injured passengers.

Keep up the good work on your ad libbing. Your speech is coming along, but remember practice makes perfect. So that is what we will be doing - practicing so we can be perfect.

See you all at class.

Bye

How's It Going??????

Have you all settled back into your school routine?

I really enjoyed our first week back, seeing all the old faces and meeting lots of new ones. The start of the term is always a little unsettling but we too will soon be into our routine.

It has been good to hear lots of fine voices. I can tell that some of you have been practicing your speech exercises. Your ad-libbing is coming along too and it has been great to hear this during our classes last week. Dust off those imaginations and get all those creative minds working. We can have sooooooo much fun.

The subject of our "snippets" this week is "Why did you put the phone down when I came into the room?" - That's a very long sentence by itself. Can you come up with some answers to it. I look forward to hearing them all.

Also I have really enjoyed watching some of our younger members having fun with crepe paper. We have been making flames and fires and dancing around the room using them as streamers. Just remember, while it is fun to pretend to be flames, we don't play with matches or fire as it can be very dangerous.

Have a really good week. I look forward to seeing you at class.

Bye for now

Here We Go

Welcome to Term One 2012

Hello to all of you who are returning for another year and a BIG WELCOME to all our new students.

Yes classes are starting this week and I have a very busy term planned.

The first thing we need to do is get those voices back into fine form after their rest over the holidays, so......
more projection, articulation and forward placing required. I will need just as much practice as you so it's something we'll be working on together.

Mime and movement is next on the list. I don't know about you but I will have to start limbering up to get into all those wonderful shapes that we make. I may be getting to old for this bit, so you will have to do it for me.

Improvisations or The Weekly Play.
This week some of us will be going to a barbecue with Timothy who loses a tooth, can you guess where??? Others of us will be off to the fairground to see if we can win a prize by Ringing the Bell. I wonder who it will be.

Snippets are returning this term. This week: "School was unbearable today". I hope this wasn't really the case for you.

See you all at class

Bye for now


Helen

Happy New Year Every One

 

I hope you all enjoyed a lovely Christmas and New Year.

Well, term one for 2012 is starting shortly and with it our drama classes. Many of you enquired about our classes last year but were unable to take part in our wonderful programme so I warmly welcome you to come along and join in our fun for 2012.

Our classes in:

 Dunedin for 6 - 11 year olds are:

Monday Wakari School Hall, Helensburgh Road    3.45 – 4.45 pm - Starting Monday 13th Feb

Tuesday  Musselburgh School Hall, Marlow St    3.30 - 4.30 pm - Starting  Tuesday 7th Feb

Thursday  Green Island School Hall,Howden St    3.30 – 4.30 pm - Starting Thursday 9th Feb

Friday  Dunedin North Intermediate School Hall, North Road   4.00 - 5.00 pm - Starting Friday 3rd Feb

Youth Theatre for students - 12 - 16 years

Thursday - St Clair Womens Club Hall. 47 Albert Road, St Clair 7.00 - 8.00 pm - Starting Thursday 9th Feb

Invercargill class for 6 - 10 year olds

Thursday Holy Trinity Church hall, King Street, Windsor, Invercargill 3.30 - 4.30 pm - Starting Thursday 9th Feb.

The lessons are divided into three sections.

Speech: Projection, articulation, helping children to speak clearly with clear beginnings and endings of words. We learn rhymes and poems to help keep this fun and to stimulate the imagination.

Mime and Movement: Learning to move our bodies in different ways and to make different shapes with our bodies. Sometimes we have partner work and we also act out short stories (plays) to music.

Creative Improvisation: We learn a short play each week where the emphasis is on making up our own sentences to react to a scenario.

The students work together to help them feel confident in class. 

Youth Theatre includes all of the above concepts and combined with stage craft and performance skills helps young adults grow in confidence and self esteem.

These classes are like a youth group, a safe environment without peer pressure or the other negative issues young people can face in society today.

Our programme runs for the full school year with classes held each week of the four terms. The fee for Term One is $135.00 all-inclusive or $250 which include a family discount for 2 children. Fees are paid at the first lesson of the term, however, I can offer you an installment plan and internet banking is available if this is more convenient.

For those students who may take a little while to settle into our programme and  to enjoy the benefits we provide, we offer a 4 week trial period for $60. This ensures we both find the programme of benefit to your child. 

Please access our website at www.helenogrady.co.nz. for more general information, testimonials etc.

Students are encouraged to call me Helen. I am a fully trained Helen O’Grady Drama teacher. Michelle Penny is my wonderful teacher for the Invercargill class. 

At the end of Term Two you are invited to our End of Term Presentation and Prizegiving. At the conclusion of Term 4 we welcome you to attend a play presented by the children especially for parents and friends and our end of year prize giving.

Parents are not encouraged to stay at class as this can distract the children, is not conducive to creative development and can make teaching difficult.  

If you have any questions please phone on 03-465-8412 or email gdwilson@xtra.co.nz.

I look forward to meeting you and your wonderful, creative children in the very near future.

Kind regards

Helen Wilson