Post on 05-Jun-2018
SPRUCE PEAK PRESENTS
In Association with the Flynn Center Student Matinee Series
GOODNIGHT MOON
& RUNWAY BUNNY
We appreciate and value your feedback.
Click here for an evaluation of our study guides.
Click here for Teacher Feedback Forms for the performance.
Click here for Student Feedback Forms for the performance.
Click here for Parent Forms to help parents engage with their children
around the show.
Welcome to the 2015-2016 Student Matinee Season!
Today’s scholars and researchers say creativity is the top skill our kids will need when they
enter the work force of the future, so we salute YOU for valuing the educational and
inspirational power of live performance. By using this study guide you are taking an even
greater step toward implementing the arts as a vital and inspiring educational tool.
We hope you find this guide useful. If you have any suggestions for content or format of
this guide, please contact sms@flynncenter.org.
Enjoy the show!
The Performance & the Story
The Production
Things to Think About Before During/After you see the show
The Company: Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia
Themes to Explore
Nigh & Bedtime Routine
Safety & Comfort
Questions to Explore the Themes
Context & History
Author: Barbara Park
Illustrator: Clement Hurd
Dark Explorations
Learning About Nocturnal Animals
Recording Your Dreams
Tightrope Walk
Bunny Hide & Seek
Guess That Animal
Bring the Art Form to Life
Art Form: Puppetry
Words Come Alive Activities:
Circle Pass with Puppets & Solo Acts
Your Visit
Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center
Etiquette for Live Performance
Why is Etiquette Important?
Common Core Standards
The Common Core broadens the definition of a “text,” viewing performance as a form of text, so your students are experiencing and interacting with a text when they attend a Flynn show.
Seeing live performance provides rich opportunities to write reflections, narratives, arguments, and more. By writing responses and/or using the Flynn Study Guides, all performances can be linked to Common Core:
CC ELA: W 1-10
You can use this performance and study guide to address the following Common Core Standards (additional standards listed by specific activities):
CC ELA: RL 1-10, RF 1-4, SL 1-2, L 3-5
Thank you to the 2015-2016 Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center
Matinee Sponsors:
Champlain Investment Partners, the UPS Store, the Kimmich Family,
and the Duke Family.
This guide was written & compiled by the Education Department at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts with inspiration from the State Theater of New Jersey Study Guide, with additional ideas adapted from the Mermaid Theater of Nova Scotia website. Permission is granted for teachers, parents, and students who are coming to Flynn shows to copy & distribute this guide for educational purposes only.
Activities to Deepen Understanding
After you see the show:
Discuss how the theatre company adapted
the play from the books. What was the
same, what was different? Use one of the
Margaret Wise Brown’s other books or
another picture book about nighttime or
families, and create your own classroom
play. Which characters and parts of the
story are essential? Which can be left out?
Work on writing a script for actors from
the book. Will you use a narrator or will
you use action and character dialogue to
tell the story?
The Production
Using various styles of puppetry, Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia brings two of
Margaret Wise Brown’s beloved stories vibrantly to life. Young learners will be
soothed and charmed by the gentle whimsy presented onstage. The two main forms
of puppetry you’ll see are rod puppetry and table top puppetry. Even though you’ll
see many puppets and lots of action on stage, only THREE puppeteers will be working
to create the story! The puppeteers will be dressed in all black, even wearing black masks. This helps the
audience focus on the puppets and the storytelling and not the performers. The actors will not speak to tell
the story; you’ll hear a recording with original music. During Goodnight Moon there will be blacklighting,
which will make set pieces and puppets glow in the dark. These creative storytellers invite you into a
dreamy, sleepy, sweet world of imagination!
Mermaid Theatre knows that these stories are really familiar to audiences, and also expects that young
people might try to help tell the stories. Also, the whimsical nature of this production often elicits joyous
and curious vocal responses. Mermaid theatre wants you to know that these responses are absolutely fine,
and that this show is officially a “non-shushing” show!
Before you see the show:
As a class, read the books. Come up with
describing words that apply to each story
(calm, playful, sleepy, etc.). When you’re
watching the show, see if the characters
could be described in the same way or if
they are a bit different in the play version.
The Company: Mermaid Theatre
Founded in 1972, Mermaid Theatre’s unique
adaptations of children’s literature have
delighted more than five million young people in
sixteen countries on four continents. Based in
Windsor, a small rural town in Nova Scotia’s Avon
Region, the company performs for more than
300,000 spectators annually, and currently ranks
among North America’s most active touring
organizations. Closer to home, Mermaid offers
instruction at all levels through its Institute of
Puppetry Arts, welcomes artists-in-residence
through its Theatre Loft, provides a unique
outreach program for adolescents through the
Youtheatre, and offers a vibrant performing arts
series at MIPAC (the Mermaid Imperial
Performing Arts Centre). Mermaid Theatre is best
known for unique stage adaptations of children’s
beloved literary classics. Their innovative
puppetry, striking scenic effects, evocative
original music and gentle storytelling have been
applauded by five million spectators in fifteen
countries.
As you watch the show:
How do the actors controlling the puppets
incorporate the characteristics from your
pre-show discussion into the show? How
might a word like “sleepy” be shown by a
puppet? How do the puppets
communicate characteristics and emotions
without changing facial expressions? Try
to identify at least three ways that the
puppets communicate their characters.
Night & Bedtime Routine
Goodnight Moon explores one little bunny’s
bedtime routine. In this production,
blacklighting will be used to create a dark stage
with glowing puppets and objects. While
darkness can be an intimidating concept for
young people, this production shows the beauty
and peacefulness of the night.
Questions to explore the theme:
What’s the difference between night and day? What
things do you do during the day? What do you do
when it is dark at night?
What words can you think of to describe the
nighttime?
What do you do to get ready for bed?
Safety & Comfort
Whether it’s an evening ritual or a persistent
parent, both of these stories highlight the safety
and comfort of home. In Runaway Bunny, the
mama bunny shows how far she would go to
keep her little one safe.
Questions to explore the theme:
Why do you think the little bunny wanted to
run away? How might he have felt if he
actually did run away?
What do the words “safe” and “comfortable”
mean to you? Where or with whom do you
feel safest and most comfortable?
The Stories: Classic and Lasting
Goodnight Moon & Runaway Bunny are some of the most beloved and cherished children’s stories of all
time. Goodnight Moon shares the nighttime routine of a little rabbit before getting tucked into bed. We
travel through his bedroom as he bids “Goodnight” to all the objects and beings that surround him. In
Runaway Bunny, another little bunny threatens to run away from his mother, who engages him in a playful
and creative game of chase, where both imaging transforming into different things and creatures, until they
agree to stay in their own safe, warm home. Both stories evoke the gentleness and safety of home.
Author Margaret
Wise Brown wrote
hundreds of books and
stories during her life,
but she is best known
for Goodnight Moon,
Big Red Barn and
Runaway Bunny.
Margaret loved animals. Most of her books have
animals as characters in the story. She liked to write
books that had a rhythm to them, so many of her
books rhyme or repeat a word pattern. She liked to
place a hard word into a story or poem because she
thought this made children think harder when they are
reading.
She wrote all the time. There are many scraps of paper
at her Alma mater, Hollins University, and at a library in
Westerly, Rhode Island where she quickly wrote down a
story idea or a poem. She said she dreamed stories
and then had to write them down in the morning
before she forgot them.
She tried to write the way children wanted to hear a
story, which often isn’t the same way an adult would
tell a story. She also taught illustrators to draw the way
a child saw things and once gave two puppies to an
illustrator to use as models. The illustrator painted
many pictures one day and then fell asleep. When he
woke up, the papers he painted on were
bare. The puppies had licked all the paint off
the paper! She once stated that the author
of a book didn’t seem important to her as a
child; it was the story that was important.
(Source: http://margaretwisebrown.com/)
Illustrator
Clement Hurd is
best known for
illustrating Goodnight
Moon and The Runaway
Bunny, the classic
picture books by
Margaret Wise Brown.
He studied painting in Paris with Fernand
Léger and others in the early 1930s. After
his return to the United States in 1935, he
began to work in children's books. He
illustrated more than one hundred books,
many of them with his wife, Edith Thacher
Hurd, including the Johnny Lion books, The
Day the Sun Danced, and The Merry Chase.
A native of New York City, he lived most of
his life in Vermont and California. (Source:
http://www.harpercollins.com/cr-100493/
clement-hurd)
Flynn Show Choir performing “Newsies”
Dark Explorations
CC ELA: RL1-4, RF2, SL1-2, 4, L4; NEXTGEN: ESS1.A
Create a serene, dark corner in your classroom, with
paper or blankets and glow-in-the-dark stars and a paper
moon. If you’re able and have access, you could position
a blacklight in your room to mimic the look of Mermaid
Theatre’s Goodnight Moon. Build in some dark time
during your school days, giving each child a flashlight and
letting them explore the night sky. Ask them to find
objects in the room using their flashlights to illuminate
their discoveries. As a reflection, ask students:
What was it like to move around in the dark? What
did it feel like?
What does the night sky look like near your home?
What are some words you would use to describe the
night sky? *Create a list of these descriptive words so
they can be used in writing practice or storytelling.
Encourage students to view the night sky with family,
and come back and report on what their experience
was like.
Learning About Nocturnal Animals
CC ELA: RL1, 4, 5, 7, RI1-10, RF 1-4
Bring a collection of books about nocturnal animals into
your classroom for students to explore. Explain that
some animals sleep during the day, and hunt, eat, and
live their awake lives during the nighttime. These are
nocturnal animals and they include: owls, raccoons,
opossum, bats, many foxes and wolves, and several
species of wild cats. Read about and discuss what these
animals’ lives might be like at night.
Get creative with nocturnal animals! Using crayons, have
students draw some of these newly studied creatures on
white paper, pressing heavily with the crayons. Then
paint the entire paper with a mix of black tempera paint
and water. The crayon will stay visible through the paint
and create a bright night scene!
Recording Your Dreams
CC ELA: RF1, W3-4, SL1, 4, L1-4
Dreams are a series of images, moments, sensations, or
thoughts that go through our head while we sleep.
Create a dream journal for each student where they can
write, draw, or collage about their dreams, ones they
remember from the past, or ones that they have
currently. If students are comfortable, have them share
with a partner or the class.
Tightrope Walk
CC ELA: RL1-3, SL1-2
“If you go flying on a flying trapeze,” said his mother, “I will be a
tightrope walker, and I will walk across the air to you.”
Using a rope, yarn, or easily removable tape, create a line
on your classroom floor and have students practice
walking across the “tightrope” like the mama bunny.
Students can use an umbrella or bar to steady them.
Bunny Hide and Seek
CC ELA: RF1-4, W2, 4, SL1-4
Hide several small toy bunnies around the classroom and
write clues that would help students discover the bunny’s
location (words or images). Divide students into as many
groups as there are bunnies, and have them work
together to find their hidden toy. After, you could also
have each group hide the bunny and create their own set
of clues to find the bunny in the classroom.
Guess that Animal
CC ELA: RF1-4, SL1-4
Create cards with images and/or images and pictures of a
variety of animals. In pairs, small groups or as a class,
have students pick a card one at a time and give clues as
to what animal is on their card. They can describe the
animal physically, or describe what the animal does, how
they interact with the world. You could also have
students act out their animal either silently or with sound
clues. Students can guess aloud or record guesses and
then reveal guesses after everyone’s performed.
The Art Form: Puppetry
The first child who ever picked up two sticks and had them play with each other was making use of puppets.
Strictly speaking, the difference between dolls and puppets is not the thing itself but whether or not there is an
audience. In this case, the child making two sticks talk to each other is simply playing, while the child making two
sticks talk together in order to entertain a little brother or sister is a puppeteer.
Puppetry has been used throughout the ages as a means of telling stories. It may have originated in India over
4,000 years ago where acting by humans was forbidden by a religious taboo on ‘impersonation’; people probably
used puppets to tell stories even before they ever acted them out. Even today, the lead player in Sanskrit plays is
called “sutradhara”, meaning ‘holder of the strings’. There are a wide variety of puppet types which are found in
many cultures all over the world.
Which kind of puppets did you see in the show? Were there more than one kind?
What did you notice about the puppets on stage? What did they look like? How did they move? What do
you think they felt like?
How did the puppets show emotions or how did the puppeteers work the puppets to show emotions? Do
you think it is more difficult to enact a character with your own body or through a puppet? Why?
READ & EXPLORE: Click here for a more in-depth description of puppetry.
Activity: Solo Acts
Learning Goal: Deepen Understanding of Character
Performing Goals: Explore Characterization with
Body
Have everyone find their own personal space in the
room. Tell students you’ll begin the story now.
“Everyone crouch down and make yourself as small as you
can in your space. Imagine you are inside a hard, transparent,
spherical shell. The shell is only just big enough for you to fit,
so you can barely move. The shell is hard, but you discover
that by pushing against the wall of the shell you can make a
"dent." You can push one small part of the wall out away
from you, and when you let it go, it doesn't spring back. Keep
making more "dents" until you have actually made the whole
shell bigger. Keep pushing the walls out around you,
smoothing out the dents as you go so you keep your shell
smooth and round. Keep enlarging your shell until it is just
big enough to stand up in.
Now, listen as your teacher narrates some key moments
from the story. In your “shell” respond to the words and
images. For example, imagine you are the little bunny,
becoming a boat on the ocean, and then imagine you are the
mama bunny, becoming the wind to blow the sailboat home.
Activity: Circle Pass with Puppets
Learning Goal: Deepen Understanding of Material,
Make Connections
Performing Goal: Follow Cues, Increase Focus
Copy & enlarge illustrations of the animals objects
from Goodnight Moon & Runaway Bunny.
Alternately, you could have students draw them.
Cut them out and paste them on cardstock. One at
a time, ask the students to pass the image around
the circle as if it is moving on its own. Encourage
them as they pass the puppet to keep it moving in
the same style and to not stop the action. Repeat
with the remaining character.
Ask: “How are acting and puppetry the same? How
are they different? If we were to put on a puppet
show for our families and friends what might we
need to do or remember about performing with
puppets? Remind students to remember how the
characters in the book illustrations look, and
compare them with the puppets they see on stage
in the show.
WORDS COME ALIVE
Arts Integration Activities Providing the opportunity to actively explore the world of the show helps
students become more engaged and connected audience members,
thinking about artists’ choices and approaching the performance with
enhanced curiosity.
For more information about any of the above, click here, email
schoolprograms@flynncenter.org or call 652-4548.
Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center in Stowe
In 2013, Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center and the Flynn Center joined forces to
expand the live performance experiences available to young audiences in Vermont.
Now, our partnership opens up live these experiences to a more diverse
geographical Vermont community, and allows us to present inspiring shows geared
towards a more intimate performance space like the stage in Stowe.
Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center opened December 27, 2010. Since that grand
opening celebration, the community has benefitted from performances and
residencies by exceptional artists. “Peak Experiences” occur every Saturday evening and sometimes in
between. Series’ include Peak Family artists whose work is exciting to kids, parents and grandparents
alike; Peak VTartists featuring music, dance and theatre of the Vermont community; Peak Students events
during school time; Peak Films that are special, spectacular events captured live; Peak Classics featuring art
that has stood the test of time; and the Peak Pop series of big events in comedy and music.
For more information about the center and other performances coming up at SPPAC, visit:
www.SprucePeakArts.org
Why is Etiquette Important?
A good live performance is a powerful communication between audience and
performer. The more the audience gives to the performer, the more the performer can
give back to the audience. The performer hears the audience laughing, senses its
sympathy, and delights in the enthusiasm of its applause. Furthermore, each audience
member affects those sitting near him or her, in addition to the performers onstage.
Technological devices (cameras, phones, etc.) have become so prevalent in our daily
lives, but using these devices is distracting to the performers onstage and other
audience members trying to watch the show. Even the light from checking the time, or
the buzz of a phone on vibrate can pull the people around you out of the experience.
Cell phone frequencies can even interfere with the
microphones in the production, and taking photos can be
unsafe for performers. Additionally, an artist has the right to
decide what photos and videos go out into the world.
Phones keep you from being present and fully engaged with
the show. Thank you for turning devices completely off!
DISCUSS BEING A MINDFUL
AUDIENCE MEMBER:
How is going to see a live
theatre performance
different from seeing a
movie, going to a concert, or
watching TV?
In small groups, come up
with a list of positive
audience behaviors, and
behaviors that would be
disruptive to performers and
other audience members.
Come together and create a
master list.
Etiquette for Live Performances
The Essentials
Listen, experience, imagine, discover, learn!
Give your energy and attention to the performers.
At the end of the show, clap for the performers’ time and energy.
Eating, drinking, and chewing gum are not okay.
Talk only before and after the performance.
Turn off wireless devices. No photos, videos, texting, or listening to music.
We can’t wait to see you at the theater!
Teachers, a few reminders:
Fill out the Seating and Travel Survey, so we can best accommodate your group’s needs in regards to dismissal,
bussing, students with different needs, etc.
Share your experience with us! Use the feedback links, or share your students’ artwork, writing,
responses. We love to hear how experiences at the Flynn impact our audiences.
Explore other student matinees at the Flynn this season. We’ve still got seats in some shows and we’d love to
help you or other teachers at your school enliven learning with an engaging arts experience!
We have some new initiatives to deepen student connection and experience!
Pre or Post-Show Video Chats: Help students build enthusiasm or process their
experience with a free, 5-10 minute video chat before or after the show! We can
set up Skype/Facetime/Google Hangouts with your class to answer questions
about the content, art form, and experience. Contact Kat,
kredniss@flynncenter.org to set up your chat!
Autism and Sensory-Friendly Accommodations: The Flynn Center has been
working diligently to break down barriers for audience members with disabilities,
with a particular focus on those with sensory-sensitivities. Social stories, break
spaces, sensory friendly materials, and more are available for all student
matinees. Feel free to let us know ahead of time if any of these would be useful,
or ask an usher at the show!
Make your field trip the most meaningful learning experience it can be with a preparatory
Companion Workshop in your classroom!
An engaging Flynn Teaching Artist can come to your school to deepen students’ understanding of both content and form
with an interactive workshop, enriching kids’ matinee experiences. Funding support is often available. To learn more, check
out this link. To book a workshop, click here. Questions? Contact Sasha: schoolprograms@flynncenter.org or (802)652-
4508
Re-stock your teaching toolkit and reignite your passion with upcoming professional
development opportunities for educators!
Get certification renewal credits, invigorate your teaching, and learn new teaching strategies that can be tailored to most
curricular material. Sponsored by the Champlain Valley Educator Development Center
November 12, 4-6PM: Workshop with Improvised Shakespeare—Chicago’s Improvised Shakespeare company leads a two-
hour workshop specially designed for Middle and High School teachers. This workshop is sure to be rapid-fire fun that gives
you new tools to get kids’ creative and critical thinking juices flowing! 2 credit hours
November 18, 9-3PM: Engaging Active Learners Conference—Now in its 7th year, we are proud to offer a full-day
conference on arts integration for Vermont educators! In collaboration with the Creative Schools Initiative, we’re thrilled to
welcome five of the nation’s top experts on arts integration to the Flynn to work with educators. In addition, choose from
a variety of content- and grade-specific teacher break-outs and hands-on workshops, and snag resources to take back to
your school. Come be part of the conversation and leave inspired! 6 credit hours
Register Now!
Hello from
the Flynn!