6th PROJECT 2012/2013
On a beautiful autumn day, the children were exploring Trnovo district. Suddenly, a colourful, feathered animal appeared out of nowhere. It was a parrot named Perlita. She was squeaking and chirping, looking at the children and flying back and forth as they pulled at her feathers. She was clicking her beak and repeating children’s words. She was showing off and communicating with us, trying to impress us. She confessed that she would like to perform on a big stage. At that time, posters for an audition for a video shoot were hanging around the kindergarten.
Perlita confidently signed up for the audition and was selected. She came to the kindergarten and introduced us ta a film director named Ferdo. Unfortunately, an accident soon occured. A fire destroyed Ferdo’s studio, where he stored his script, costumes, and filming equipment. He lost everything. The children helped him create a new script, suggested ideas for new costumes and found a way to shoot a movie that made Perlita a real movie star with the most famous director.
Research areas: language, science, craft, culture, theatre, media, social curriculum in relation to other curricular areas such as natural science, society, movement, art, mathematics
The story about the parrot Perlita and film director Ferdo focused on language as one of the curricular areas. Exploring the diversity and similarities of two different natural environments (Amazonia vs. Slovenia) from which the protagonists originated represented a cognitive and creative challenge. To improve communication skills (speech and pronunciation), we used two puppets with completely different characters and abilities. With their help, we discovered, explored and created different sounds through words and rhymes, made up songs, and became familiar with various genres and ways of expression as well as film production. We progressed from stage to stage: from letters to syllables to words, from books to theatre and from theatre to everyday communication channels (internet, TV, etc.). This path led us to the final goal of the project – the production and TV show. Curious and spirited children, always always ready to help, guided the story of Perlita and Ferdo to its conclusion and presented it to their parents at the end of the school year. We prepared a creative performance by displaying our own movie production in a real theatre.
