Noodle and the Goose Again

Cowfolks and Vaqueros

This week, Wednesday and Thursday evenings, Noodle's 5th Grade class had their BIG SHOW. An adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set on the border of Mexico and Texas. Juliet as a Vaquera and Romeo as a Cowboy. Language adapted to be historically accurate or contemporary with some of the original poetry retained - Shakespeare didn't write "he haw" or "You want a piece of me?", but he did write, "But soft, what light at yonder window breaks". The adaptation was written by the Art Director and the kids. The music - oh yes, there was lots of song and lots of dance - was all cowboy tunes -Old Dan Tucker, Home on the Range, Buffalo Gals or Vaquero ballads in Spanish. The dances were complex and fun. The fight scenes were well choreographed. There were live musicians. The performance was at a local theater with professional lights, staging and make up. The kids have been working on the play for months.

To say that it was awesome is an understatement. It was astonishing. Absolutely astonishing.

Because these kids? Are 10 and 11 years old. And they behaved and performed like professionals - or at least extremely good amateurs.  This was not a usual Elementary School production.

Most of the kids have been at the Arts Based School since Kindergarten and have had 5 years of dance, song, drama and yearly performance. Our Noodle held her own with them, though I could not help but lament that she didn't have the same 5 years of this sort of education (yes, yes, don't tell me what a good thing it was for her to be where she was for the last years, I know, I know, but if we had stayed put here, she would have been at this school for those years - trade-offs, trade-off, trade-offs). Arts Based Education isn't for everyone - someone needs to study science and technology and math and all those things that this school isn't so strong on. But my girls - and I have to admit, their jealous Mama - are a good fit for this place.

I am grateful we landed here this year.

And while I want to convince y'all that the performance was that good, I can't willy nilly post photos of other people's children - at least not identifiable ones. So here's a bunch of kids from far away and kids from backstage and kids dancing and singing and having a great time on stage. Cowboys and Vaqueros.

 

And yep, that wee short little one with the purple skirt and long braids is our Noodle.

She was a Cowgirl extraordinaire.

With but one spoken line, "What did he say?"

And one really big scene as the Messenger who takes the note explaining to Romeo that Juliet isn't really dead from the Priest, 

(This particular gesture did not require a great deal of acting on her part)

and then races away on a (stick) horse,

Through the dark of night (okay, it is a crappy photo, but it was DARK and she was galloping at top speed)

to pass the message on to another courier, who, as we know, arrives too late,all of which leads to such a tale of woe for Juliet and her Romeo.

I think Will would be quite pleased.

(One more gratuitous photo of my favorite Cowgirl.

Being All Sciencey

As I believe I've mentioned here before, we are not really big Science people at our house. Sciencey at best. And yet, something possessed T to undertake not one, but two major Science experiences (as Goose calls them) in the past 24 hours.

The first involved what might result if one, on his night off from work, might place two kettles on the hot stove (one pasta, one lentils) turned on high, whilst also positioning  a wooden spoon strategically on a third burner (also on high) with the handle reaching all the way to the counter-top AND THEN leave the house for god only knows what reason, at approximately 4 am.

I don't know what his working hypothesis was, but the results were; a) a smoke filled house, b) a charred and about to burst into flames wooden spoon, c) a hole burned in the counter-top (perfect for making the house ready for sale!), d) a solid block of burned pasta, e) the screeching of 4 properly functioning smoke alarms, f) terrified wife and children yanked from their peaceful slumbers  screaming and screaming and screaming (mostly the children) and running for the front yard. Oh yeah, and the dog howling, yipping and running pell mell around that yard.

By the time he got back from where ever he went (I never did ask, though I suspect it might involve early morning fast food) I had thrown the charred remains of spoon, pasta and lentils into the sink, opened every door and window possible and got the kids back to bed. It took me a bit more time to settle back down.

THEN about 12 hours later came his second experience. This one involving animal behavior. Specifically what might transpire if one left one's PUPPY WHO CHEWS EVERYTHING IN SIGHT all alone, outside  her crate, in the room that your wife just spent the whole entire freaking day cleaning and organizing with the door to the closet wherein said wife just carefully unpacked and repacked all the china and crystal from her mother's house in sturdy cardboard boxes, all carefully labeled and safely stored OPEN. Leaving this puppy while your wife is out grocery shopping, your kids are glued to a movie in another room, three closed doors away and you are sleeping downstairs.

Yeah, well, that one didn't go so well either. The smoke alarms didn't go off, but there was a bit of screaming when the wife got home. And just a bit of crying over some broken china and crystal.  Not too much of the latter, thankfully. But enough to decisively prove MY working hypothesis that WE CANNOT LEAVE THE PUPPY UNATTENDED AND ROAMING FREELY IN THE HOUSE NO NEVER, NOT EVER!!!!!!

I don't know. Perhaps the man was inspired by the other science experiences going on in our house over the past few weeks. Both Noodle and Goose did Science Fair projects this year. And though we all (the girls and I) complained and whined and moaned our way through the projects, in retrospect they were a walk in the park with ice cream on top. Nothing broken, nothing burned. Just three decidedly non-sciencey women trying to wend our way through hypotheses, procedures, results, observations and presentations. Goose did best of all, excited and on-task. Keeping Noodle focused was somewhat harder.

Goose's Experience was about color mixing using color tablets (like for Easter Egg dying), water, test tubes, pipettes, expanding crystals and lots and lots of pretty colors.

It was actually pretty cool and she did such a good job on it.

I was downright proud of her, especially because she insisted on writing everything by herself. Yeah, it didn't win any prizes - which she was rather saddened by - but girl did a good job. And loved the "Science Fair Participant" ribbon that she got.

Noodle's Project was mostly Noodle wanting to play with electricity and me trying to channel that into something Science Fairy. Like trying to determine which kind of light bulb might be more efficient - an incandescent or a compact fluorescent. Because, you know, there's that whole Clean Energy thing going on and it's a very pertinent contemporary political and environmental issue. Plus, Noodle just read a biography of Thomas Edison and was all jazzed about finding out how light bulbs work.

The experiment was not the work of professionals - to be sure.

A six-volt battery, some wire, a few nails, a metal filament (lifted from a metal pot scrubber) and a piece of wood (yes, it is a garden stake, but you use what you have in our house).

Whoo hoo!! a red glowing metal filament!!

Followed by failed attempts to light light bulbs with the 6 volt battery.

Yeah, not so much. But as we know, From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success!!!

Try Mom's desk lamp!!!

Success!!!

A brightly glowing filament!!!

Success!!!

Measuring the heat given off by the light bulbs (with a drug store digital thermometer!!!)

Success!!!

Success!!

And while I thought her presentation rocked the world (it had a Graph, for goodness sake), the snoot-nosed grad student judges (who were, I suspect, Science People) didn't so much. So yeah, she didn't win either, but as I kept singing to her:

Disaster didn't stymie Louis Pasteur!
No sir!
Edison took years to see the light!
Right!
Alexander Graham knew failure well; he took a lot of knocks to ring that
bell!
So when it gets distressing it's a blessing!
Onward and upward you must press!
Yes, Yes!
Till up from the ashes, up from the ashes grow the roses of success.

And quite frankly?

We've had about as much Science as we can take for awhile.

Wil & Ben

Then there was the day when both girls set off to school in costume.

Goose's class had been reading Charlotte's Web and learning about farm animals. They concluded by dressing up as a character from the book or a random farm animal.

I give you Wilbur, Some Pig.

Astute readers will recognize the nose as a reprise of the "Third Little Pig" costume from last year's Book Week in Indo.  Ears and tail did not make the trip home with us and had to be reconstructed.

Noodle had been working at a report on Ben Franklin with the culmination a "Wax Museum" wherein she was to dress like the old guy and give a three minute speech about his life and accomplishments.

She was resplendent.

And probably a bit more dignified than the man himself.

Her speech went quite well, though she confessed to having wobbly knees and a flock of butterflies in her tummy. Public speaking is a new thing for our Noodle.

In our quest for the perfect Ben Franklin report and costume we hit both the public library and the old Colonial section of our city. I always forget how much I love the restored 18th century buildings and the folks wandering about in mob caps and tri-corn hats and how I used to dream of having a job at Colonial Williamsburg doing crafty things like shearing sheep and spinning wool. I was so pleased to see Noodle (and Goose to a lesser extent, she was mostly focused on finding the bakery) catch the scent of history - specifically American history and get excited about it. True, we've been to many and sundry historical places - thousand year old temples and The Forbidden City e.g., - and my Chiquitas will do well in World History.  But there is just something about them learning the story of the country we adopted them into. Good non-patriotic Mennonite that I am withstanding, I had moments of verklemptness when we read the Preamble to the Constitution together (children of the 70's, can you sing it along with me??). We read it, and the Declaration of Independence critically, of course. All men are created equal, to secure domestic tranquillity, what's up with that? And I'm very happy that their school teaches American history critically - history is told by the victors, what happened to the Native peoples? , what's up with that?  But geez. That rhetoric of freedom, equality and happiness is good stuff.  If only we could live up to it all.

If only.

(I hasten to add, to strengthen my Menno cred, that neither of my children recites the Pledge of Alliegence at school and Goose reportedly informed her friend that she does not do so "Because it is about guns and war and killing people, and we dont' do that".  Ha.

Kindergarten Table Talk

Yesterday I was volunteering at Goose's classroom - as I do every Thursday. An extra pair of hands, someone to do the busy work (I have laminated, alert the Ph.D police), someone to oversee lunch so that the teachers can have a break.

It was during lunch time yesterday when one table of (multi-racial) 5 year olds began discussing tongues. As in, who has one and who does not. Alex was quite disturbed when Arianna pronounced him tongue-less. Orion displayed his tongue and its amazing ability to touch his nose. Wilson licked Siraaj. Then Julian called me over to whisper conspiratorially,

"Chinese people do not have tongues".

"Really?" I asked.

"Yeah, they don't have tongues, I know".

"Hmmm. Did you know that Goose is Chinese?"

"Um"

"Does she have a tongue?"

"Um"

"Let's check, Goose do you have a tongue?" (Promptly stuck out at her classmate). "Yes, yes, she seems to have a tongue".

"Oh"

"I think your hypothesis might be flawed"

"Oh"

"Chinese people are just like other people, you know. They have tongues."

"Oh.....Goose stuck her tongue at me"

"Yes, I know. Purely for research purposes, dispelling stereotypes, combating racism. Please finish your lunch now"

"Ok".

Just doing my part folks, just doing my part.