Over the river and through the woods
Posted by Bryan on January 15, 2016
As BOM teachers, we are often taken on spectacular journeys to faraway fantasy lands through the stories that our students write. This past fall, however, we were taken on a literal journey outside our typical stomping grounds of our beloved CPS school districts.
The road was a figurative minecraft—er, um, minefield of literal snow drifts, for November snowfall had collected from the previous days. Well, to say it was a minefield might be stretching the truth… In actuality, our teams of Monkeys traveled with no trouble and arrived safely and warmly at the wonderful Hough Street Elementary School, in the beautiful, historic Village of Barrington! The Barrel of Monkeys were guests in ten classrooms that day, and in each of them, we were completely floored by the amount of enthusiasm and imagination among the students!
I’ve had the distinct pleasure of going on this journey into the Hough classrooms and all the way back to BOM headquarters, the new stories, like precious gems, safely in hand—some of them…
even written on large, sacred-scroll-like sheets of paper!
Here at HQ, we’ve been hard at work, adapting the marvelous creations into live sketches for their school show to be unveiled next week. Here, you’ll see a few of us in rehearsal mode, enacting a portion of one story.
Or…is this a flash forward in time, when we journey once more, back to Barrington, armed with neon wigs, bacon costumes, a nifty keyboard—“AND MY AXE!...” added Geoff, proudly pumping his guitar in the air—to perform Hough Street Elementary School’s stories for them, the very authors by whom our characters and settings were writ into existence… It’s a mighty quest, indeed, and we’re so lucky to go on it with these excellent writers!
Safe travels to you,
Monkey Bryan