The play Flushed! is about water and how it is cleaned in our sewer system, and the ‘scoop on poop’. I was not aware of all the details as to how the cleaned waste products are used as the basis of fertilizer and hence are as much “the beginning of the food chain” as the end. In Flushed!, Lolli the bored goldfish is accidentally flushed down the toilet by her owner, and she meets various characters during each stage of the water treatment plant en route to the river, learning as she travels. Here’s the set, before the play began. Note the kids on the right-hand side in brown T-shirts, being prepped to be part of the play.

Lolli, the bored goldfish, swimming aimlessly round and round and round her aquarium:

Jake, Lolli’s owner, dumping poison and other chemicals down the toilet rather than cleaning up properly.

The actor who played Jake played many other roles in the play, including Tilapia the tilapia fish (“I had practical parents”) that Lolli meets in the first stage of the water treatment plant, and “Peter Poo”, here. Yes, we watched a poo sing and dance with sludge (the boys) and scum (the girls). The actor did different accents for each character, and was very funny and enthusiastic. Peter Poo had a “proper British accent” for extra juxtapositional humour.

Bacteria and Lolli in a slow-motion fight, as Lolli tried to save the remains of her friend Peter that the bacteria is eating to decompose it to be used in fertilizer:

More singing and dancing, with some bacteria kids blowing bubbles for effect:

Everyone waving arms and singing along to the water song at the end. It was well received with giggles and applause throughout—and the kids (and adults!) learning something too.

For those of you reading in Calgary, Evergreen Theatre does programs and performances for homeschoolers as well as conventional schools. Just email them (contact info on their website) for details.

They class began by showing us some of the things they had done. They began with freeform movement to music, and when the music stopped, they were to freeze in “an interesting pose.” Gareth got right into it:

Then then went on to various type of movement based on animals: animals in the sea, animals in the forest, animals in the sky. When they froze the teacher would ask them what animal they were, and the kids would answer simply: “a bird,” “a shark,” “a deer”. Except, of course, my little comedian. Here he is moving like “a type of bird, and the type of bird I am being is called a raptor.” This elicited a few chuckles from the audience:

Then the kids demonstrated a game they played often in class: clay and artist. The kids pair off, and one kid in the artist, and one the lump of clay. The artist is to arrange the clay in an interesting pose, and then tell the class when they made. Some answers: “a tree", “a star,” “a cat”. Here’s what Gareth created with the girl with her back to the audience:

And Gareth’s explanation of what he made? “An Irish Dancer…(at this point the girl nearly toppled over from being off-balance with one foot in the air in a crazy pose)…who doesn’t know how to dance.” Cracked the audience (and teacher) right up!

Then they were to move to the music in the form of the animal they were going to be in their little play. So we had some dolphins swimming gently, and elephant walking, etc. And Gareth? He sat on the floor in the middle of everything, and began slapping his flippers together and barking: “Ork! Ork! Ork!” Totally into his character, the seal. Again, lots of the adults in the audience cracked up, and I started getting the “Is that YOUR son?” questions.

Then the kids began their play (which the teacher narrated): A Water Mystery. All the animals were asleep in the zoo when the elephant came and drank all the water! He’d had too much salty popcorn earlier. A detective and zookeeper look for clues, then confront the elephant, who agrees to share the water and spurts it back out of his trunk so the seals and dolphins can swim again, and the other animals can drink.

The kids then took their bows. Here is Gareth demonstrating his seal clap for Dad afterwards. Can you tell he LOVED this class? He told me he wants to do drama again; in fact, “I don’t ever want to not do drama!”

The intro line, in which each child stepped forward and said their name and the character they were playing. Daegan is between Tweedle Dee (or Dum?) and Alice, and I have to say, drama is one activity in which Daegan’s general LOUDNESS and exuberance is an asset. He projects his voice well.

The set and materials for these classes are quite minimal—the kids made much of their own costumes (Daegan designed his antennae out of an old headband, pipe cleaners and styrofoam balls)—but they created many of the effects of Alice in Wonderland in very clever ways. Here is Alice following the white rabbit down the rabbit hole:

Daegan watching the proceedings from the “wings” backstage:

The caterpillar’s entrance, on the “mushroom”. Daegan opted not to smoke the pipe—bad for one’s health, you know.

Daegan’s main role in the play was to explain to Alice that she could control her size. Here he is explaining that eating from one side of the mushroom would make her smaller, and the other side, make her taller:

Alice ate from the side of the mushroom that made her taller; to show this, she hopped up on the stool (only her legs are visible), and the caterpillar went down to the floor:

Then the caterpillar “spun a chrysalis, and changed into a beautiful butterfly.” Can’t say I recall that part of Alice, but it was great of the teacher to adapt the story to Daegan’s interests! Off he flew!

Getting ready for the Mad Hatter’s party:

Bowing before the King and Queen of Hearts:

The “off with her head!” scene followed, then a big chase and finally Alice waking up from her dream. The cast then took a bow (Daegan is not in the shot as he was off to the side flapping with excitement):

And probably my favourite pic of all, in which Gareth gave his brother a congratulatory hug, after telling him how much he enjoyed the play and his performance (“You were fantastic, Daegan!”). Awwwww!

Tomorrow I’ll post about Gareth’s performance.

We had a lovely weekend. Friday night I took the boys swimming at VRRI, where the pool is wonderfully warm. They do lots of rehab stuff there, so I am not kidding when I say the pool is kept at the temperature of a warm bath. Ahhhh! The boys had lots of fun splashing, playing with all kinds of pools toys made available—pool noodles, flutter boards, diving rings, balls, little watering cans, etc.—and sliding down the little slide. (There’s another bigger slide at the deep end, but we didn’t go in that end of the pool as I had the boys on my own as Jim stayed home to catch up on some desperately needed sleep.) And Daegan swam without a lifejacket the whole time (he told me not to bring it) and the boy can now swim! Gareth clung to me in his lifejacket at first, but gradually gained confidence and by the end was floating and splashing about without me. (I was ‘in arm’s reach’ of course). We’ll definitely go back again for the Friday night swim; there was a nice amount of people there and the boys found the other kids friendly and wanting to play.

Saturday afternoon we headed off to Storybook Theatre to check out Seymour the Stegosaurus, tickets for which the boys had received as a Christmas present. There was a little table set up in the lobby with someone from a reptile organization; she had an iguana (named Uba; rhymes with tuba), a bearded dragon, and a few others. Certainly was a great way to pass the time while waiting to go in to our seats. The boys very much enjoyed the play, and talking with the actors and getting them to sign our programs after the show. The play is about a stegosaurus named Seymour who gets lost in 2010 in Calgary after chomping on a magical bulrush. He befriends a girl named Lily, who lives with her mean aunt and uncle; the uncle is a crazy palaeontologist who is consumed by the desire to become “president of the fossil society”—so much so that he fakes a dino skeleton with popsicle sticks, tinker toys, paint and glue. (The boys found this hilarious). He tries to trap Seymour, but with Lily’s help, Seymour gets the magic bulrush back and chomps on it again, transporting him back to his own time. The boys were so inspired by the play that when we arrived home they immediately started creating their own version of Seymour the Stegosaurus. The argued over who’d play Seymour (the both wanted to), cast Jim and I as the mean aunt and uncle (sigh), and felt their friend Aurora would make a great Lily. Daegan started writing the script and Gareth started constructing the set and props.

Here’s a pic of Daegan checking out the set before she show started:

On Sunday Jim took the boys to their skating lessons in the morning. We had a not-so-lazy around-the-house afternoon of laundry, cleaning, cooking, etc. Gareth helped me make an apple crisp, which was a lovely finish to our raspberry-pineapple wheatball (faux meatball), scalloped potato and peas dinner. So nice to have a leisurely sit-down meal once in a while, as weekdays seems so grab-and-go right now. After dinner Jim did a simple science experiment with the boys showing that carbon dioxide is heavier than air; I’ll be writing it up in tomorrow’s blogpost. The boys LOVED the experiment, and I loved seeing Jim in this role, being his zany, charming, geeky self. Here he is at one point during the experiment:

Like I said, it was a great weekend.