Who's in Rabbit's House (part 4) African masks bring the story to life!

For my use with mostly 6 year olds, I have pre-made masks.  Our class meets once a week for 90 minutes and I have to choose with processes will take our time.  I decided that the dramatic process was most important in this experience so I have pre-made masks and simple set design we use with the story Who's in Rabbit's House by Verna Aardema.

I've posted a huge selection of pictures so you can find ideas for your own or print out mine and copy them for your children.  Close-ups and actions shots included.  Have fun!

The Set

Click the photo to see the image magnified.

A hanging backdrop creates a sense of drama and is easily folded and stored on a shelf after each use.

Rabbit's house is a giant cardboard puppet theatre made out of an old refrigerator box.  It folds for easy storage.  We turn it backwards and use it for Rabbit's House in this story.  "The Long One" is hiding inside.  

Rhino and rabbit in action

The Masks 
Our African masks are made out of cardboard or very heavy weight paper.  They are brightly colored with Mr. Sketch smelly markers.

Rabbit

You can see the eye-holes cut as a half-moon shape on either side of the nose.

Frog

Frog mask

Frog mask with eye-holes opened so you can see placement.  I wish I had placed them a little higher up.

Frog in action

Jackal

Jackal mask

Jackal mask with eye-holes slit onto face.

Leopard

Leopard mask

Leopard mask with eye-holes slit onto cheeks.

Elephant

Elephant mask

Elephant mask with eye-holes slit onto cheeks.  Strings are tied through ear/side of cheek on the mask.

Elephant, rhino and rabbit in action.

Rhino

Rhino mask with horns cut out and tilted up.

Rhino mask with eye-holes slit and folded up.

Rhino mask

The Puppets
The Long One is a large stick puppet

The Lake is a blue blanket taped to 2 sticks.  
One child is chosen to be the lake and waves it about at the appropriate times.

Leopard, Jackal and The Lake in action

Who's in Rabbit's House (part 3)

In Make Me Musical post 1 we read the story.  Click here to read part 1.

In post 2 we experienced each character through movement patterns and emotional expression. Click here to read about building characterization for the play in part 2.

Now....we're ready for the African orchestra.

As a group we sort through the giant collection of small percussion in my cupboards and learn which instruments are of african origin.

Xylophones are of african origin...metallophones are not!

Drums of many kinds are, of course, african in origin.

Shakers and hollowed instruments, thumb pianos are also of african origin.

Here is my humble collection!

Use all your big drums. I have 3 big drums and this is one of them.  On top of the conga you can see the "kids talking drum".  We spend time learning how to hold it and squeeze it to change the pitch."

thumb pianos - kalimba - interestingly, the round thumb piano is decorated with australian aboriginal design yet the tag when I bought it said it was made in Africa!

calabash and rabbit shaker

loop rattle and agogo bells made in Africa

Set up the xylophones in F pentatonic.  Take out the E's and B's (the Eggs & Bacon).  We did not specify exact bars to play.  I did specify the rhythm. (dotted quarter/eighth) 

I played the bass xylophone in a dotted quarter/eighth rhythm and other children and parents joined us to play this rhythm.  This is a fantastic rhythm to play while narrating the story.  I just play ever-so-lightly through almost the entire play and it creates an atmosphere of "Africa!"  

The small percussion are used creatively to make the sounds of the animals moving.

frog - hopping

jackal - running

elephant - stomping

leopard - leaping

rhino - chunky and charging

the long one - running (at the end of the story)

I let who ever is playing the small percussion decide how the sound will be made so it's entirely improvisational.  Small percussion players just play when their animal is moving.

The big drums are fantastic for the elephant sound but I don't insist on that if someone has an idea they'd prefer for the elephant.

I do ask that the big drums be played simultaneously in time with the words of the chant, "I am the Long One.  I eat leaves and trample on elephants.  Go away or I will trample on you!"

Tomorrow (part 4) I will have pictures of our masks.

  

It's not that easy to convey the simple complexity of this activity:)  Are you able to follow it?  I'm breaking it up into a series of posts so that each post is not miles long!  I hope it's useful/comprehensible!

Who's in Rabbit's House? (part 2)

The story of "Who's in Rabbit's House?" is a story about fear, friendship and community.  As the story begins, African villagers are gathering together to see a play prepared by other members of the village.  The actors don masks and the play begins...

The Process

1.  Read the story with your class.  This year's class is a real story-loving bunch and they were happy to sit and be captivated by this book.  That doesn't always happen!  Sometimes we have to act out the animals as they appear to give the wigglers some legitimate way to cope with listening to a story.

Get your copy of the book here at Amazon.com if you can't find one at the library! 

This year the 2 comments/questions that stood out for me were...

• "Why is their skin so black?"  (The illustrations show the African villagers with black-black skin...not the typical shade of skin we see everyday in our town.)  We talked about this, as we do with every country we visit this year, and how the skin colors are so varied.

• "I know what I'd do to get that bad animal out of my house!  I'd just open the door and grab him and throw him out."  (I would bring up the point that this is a story of how the rabbit was afraid of the bad animal and didn't have the courage to open the door.  It is a small moment to open a child's eyes to compassion or empathy.  We actually talked about how obvious it was to just open the door and see what was behind it...and how the story wouldn't have any drama if we did that!)

2.  As you are reading, involve the children in chanting whenever it repeats, "I am the Long One.  I eat trees and trample on elephants.  Go away or I will trample on YOU!"  (you really have to get your own copy of the story to see what I mean...and you will be happy to have it...it's a lovely story)



3.  Explore characterization/moving like each character in the story.  This year we didn't spend as much time on this part compared to years' past.  They were keen to get to the masks and the orchestra parts.

Rabbit - sitting on a log, cleaning up around the outside of rabbit's house/hoeing/sweeing/patting the roof/taking away sticks/emotions of sad and mad/being flung into the lake, laughing

Frog - hiding behind a tree, hopping, laughing and helping, rolling a giant-size jungle leaf into the shape of a bullhorn for calling through.

Jackal - fearful, gathering sticks

Elephant - heavy step, swaying trunk, stomping

Leopard - leaping and scratching

Rhino - charging

The Long One - big scary voice, fearful running away, crawling up into a tree

4.  Gather together the Orff Orchestra and small African percussion instruments for the musical accompaniment.
I will post more photos and detail about how we incorporated the instrument play in tomorrow's Make Me Musical post.

5.  Set the scene for the play with a backdrop, tree, house, log-seat, lake and animal masks.  

6.  Importance of masks in storytelling in some African cultures.  In a couple of days I will post some great close-up pix of the masks I made for use in our class.  The kids love them!

7.  Perform the play together.  I have a script written out based on the story.  It helps the story to move along more fluidly when we are in "play/performance" mode.  

 

Who's in Rabbit's House? An African StoryPlay (part 1)

Who's in Rabbit's House  

by Verna Aardema
You can find your own copy at Amazon.com 

One of the programs at Musicalia centers on "Music Around the World".  Each week we travel to a new country or culture or time in history.  These last two weeks we've been in Africa. 

For our last class in Africa we invited the parents and siblings to participate in a play based on an African story called "Who's in Rabbit's House?" 

"Who's in Rabbit's House?"  is a story of how all the animals try to help Rabbit when a bad animal gets into Rabbit's house and he can't get him out.  It's one of those tales where a small creature creates big drama and fear.  In the end, out of all the giant animals in the story it is the smallest animal who saves the day. 

The next post at Make Me Musical I will share with you some simple ideas of how to bring life to an African story using masks, simple props, xylophones, drums and small percussion.

If you don't have this book...get one from Amazon or the library!