Lift Every Voice and Act

It was another great week with the fifth-grade students in Ms. Lawson's and Ms. Bergman's classes at Hyde Park Elementary School. After reviewing last week and previewing the lesson of the day, we dove right in. As actors, we must routinely train our bodies, voice and minds to be great. The students challenged themselves with stretching exercises, voice tongue twisters, and focus/imagination/mindfulness exercises.

The students took their acting game up several notches by learning to convey emotion regardless of the script in the Emotional Numbers exercise. Can I tell you how impressed I was watching the student actors convey happiness, sadness, anger and excitement utilizing only the number 1-20?

And then it was time to review our script from last week and introduce new pages for this week. The leap this week in fluency and reading comprehension was remarkable. Ms. Lawson commented how proud she was of her students. I was proud too. The student actors demonstrated excitement and eagerness to learn about James Weldon Johnson through acting, and I was thrilled to be partnered with two amazing, caring educators, who really get the bigger picture -- If James Weldon Johnson can do great things, my students can do great things too! ​

Ms. Lawson

Ms. Bergman