Thursday evening and Friday during assembly, the Junior classes performed a series of plays, spoken pieces and songs. The performance was the culmination of their year studying the seven continents. The juniors took the audience on a journey to Africa, Antarctica, Australia, South America, Europe, Asia and North America. We had a special prop in the play – a 100 year old narwhal tusk from one of Admiral Peary’s expeditions!
In the longest play, a stone-cutter named Ming Lee tries to find happiness. With the help of a magical tiger, Ming Lee tries on different roles of increasing grandeur. After ascending all the way to God of the Mountain, she realizes that the search has been fruitless when she feels the tap of another stone-cutter’s chisel. She happily goes back to being a stone-cutter. As one of the lines in the play states: “Don’t climb a tree to catch a fish.”
Another play from Asia was about Oni Island.
In a play from India, a somewhat greedy Rajah prefers to keep the town’s rice for himself. When a villager asks for the simple reward of one grain of rice that will double each day, the Rajah agrees. Little does he know that he will be giving away a lot of rice by the end of the month! This classic story usually only doubles the rice a few times, but this was a math opportunity not to be missed! The Juniors had fun doubling one grain of rice thirty times to get a total of over a billion. Thanks to the Junior One student who had handily memorized the figure, because I could not write fast enough during the play to keep up!
In the play “The Great Kapok Tree,” a man starts to cut down a large tree. He reconsiders when the animals of the forest tell him what the tree means to them. I thought the students did a wonderful job with their sound effects!
We also learned about the origins of the word “juggernaut.” As Wikipedia so cheerily describes it: “Originating in c. 1850, the term is a metaphorical reference to the Hindu Ratha Yatra temple car which was apocryphally reputed to crush devotees under its wheels.”
Congratulations to all the Juniors, Jessie, Toni and all the teachers and parents who helped with the play. More videos to come…