Peshtigo first graders travel to UW-Green Bay | News | ehextra.com

Peshtigo first-grade students recently spent the day in Green Bay, viewing a play at the Weidner Center and engaging in hands-on learning at UW-Green Bay. Starting off at the Weidner Center for the Performing Arts, students viewed a production of Aesop’s fable, “The Tortoise and the Hare.”

“There’s nothing quite like the experience for first graders of watching a live stage production,” said teacher Yen Williams. The Weidner’s Stage Door Education Series is a collaboration with UW-Green Bay dedicated to serving schools, teachers, students and families through dynamic and engaging educational and cultural experiences.

“The performing arts teach children how to think creatively through imagination,” Williams explained. “It exposes them to new vocabulary and ways of communicating through the arts of dance, acting, and music.”

Students were entertained for an hour-long performance where the actors operated their own costumes accompanied with music in each scene. Student Hailee Denzer expressed, “I thought we were watching a movie, but they were real!”

“I liked it when the lights moved with the music,” student Mordecai Gunderson said.

Each performer was responsible for their own lights. The entire cast wore a black fabric for dimension and then lined with electroluminescent wire known as “el wire,” which can be powered by batteries. It requires no theatrical lighting and gives a 360-degree of glowing light.

Williams adds, “The production aligns with our literacy curriculum, improving comprehension skills and identifying the story elements.”

Next students toured the Brown County STEM Innovation Center located at the UW-Green Bay campus. The students were grouped and engaged in three science-based literacy activities connected to the themes of the “Tortoise and the Hare.” UW-Green Bay students led a read-aloud with Peshtigo students and discussed the differences between a turtle and a tortoise. Students also were able to create turtle and bunny craft projects.

The most favorite among the students was to create a robot from an electric toothbrush, called a “robo bristle brush.” Williams adds, “These lessons required students to follow sequential directions involving multiple actions and multiple objects, which are essential skills. It was a great day for everyone involved. A day at the theater is something that cannot be overlooked.”

This article was submitted by the Peshtigo School District.

Source: Peshtigo first graders travel to UW-Green Bay | News | ehextra.com