More Than a School, It's a Community.
5th graders have finished up with their Wax Museum speeches- Thanks to Dr. Adkins for successfully leading our students through the process of creating and delivering a speech. In our class, they also worked to build their qualities of good speech and include a strong tableau (frozen picture) of their historical figure.
Now students have the opportunity to compete in the Archdiocese/Christ the King Speech Contest. 5th graders have been building background knowledge about the speech topic: Lessons of Humility and Accountability from Religious Leaders. It is a tough topic this year! 
We worked in small groups to discuss the important vocabulary in the topic as well as relate personal experiences of humility and accountability. All 5th graders got started on their introduction. I hope many consider writing the speech to be our SPSL representative at the contest. Contest details are posted in Google Classroom and on the tabs here.
We are moving next into our Readers’ Theatre unit. Students’ knowledge of important figures in history will be flexed as we use Thomas Hischak’s collections of Plays of Science and Invention and Plays of the American Experience.
7th and 8th grade Drama Club spent Martin Luther King, Jr. day, January 20th, at school working on our upcoming musical, Disney’s The Lion King Jr. 
We finally got to rehearse in our performance space! The Parish Center has been a blessing to have for rehearsal purposes, but we were ready to try out the stage with real entrances and exits. Next week we will have our Tech Week, when we add all of the technical elements of the show- lights, sound, props, costumes/hair/makeup, and set. 
Please join us for our public performances of The Lion King Jr. on Friday, January 31st and Saturday, February 1st at 7:00 pm. Performances are free and open to the public with donations accepted. The performance should last approximately 75 minutes and will be held in the SPSL Gym/Auditorium. 
Many alums are involved in upcoming high school productions:
*** Roncalli will be presenting Beauty and the Beast November 8, 9, and 10
*** Mercy will be presenting Annie November 8, 9, and 10.
*** Mercy will host a special “Popcorn Preview” for 5th-8th grade girls on November 6.
Way to go, alums! We love to see you involved in Drama.
Parents and Grandparents of our 8th grade Advanced Speech and Drama class as well as 7th grade, 8th grade, and 2nd grade will be invited to our performance of Wait ‘Till the Sun Shines, Nellie. We look forward to showcasing all of the hard work students have done! The show features student directors, actors, designers, and technicians. We have a few more costumes, props, and set pieces to find, build, and paint, some scenes to tighten up, and some sound cues to polish.
Be ready to boo, hiss, and awwwww on November 26!
The 7th grade elective class has started our unit on a special area of technical theatre- costume! Seventh graders are learning about the role of a costume designer as well as the questions that a costumer must consider as a member of the creative team. We will be working as the costume designers and costume crew for the 5th and 6th grade musical, Fiddler on the Roof Jr.
Our new class, 8th Grade Advanced Speech and Drama, is hard at work on their production of a melodrama! They read script previews and selected the play, Wait ‘Till the Sun Shines, Nellie. We ordered scripts and paid royalties for a performance. They opted to do design work or audition. Two students have been selected to student direct, so we held auditions and cast the play.
Students are now immersed in all things melodrama. Students are designing sets, props, and costumes. They are learning all about stock characters, about booing the villain and cheering the hero, and even about some typical acting poses. We had a special guest teacher in our classroom who is an expert on melodrama- Miss Janet Drvol! She has been doing the music for melodrama (along with her mom our former music teacher, Mrs. Carol Drvol) for many years. She taught the students about the power that music plays in everything we watch and how incidental music is just one of the ways melodrama involves the actors and audience. Thank you, Miss Drvol! We also had an excellent donation of a keyboard to our classroom. We will be able to make our own soundtrack of incidental music and record it on the keyboard. Thank you, donor!
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The 7th grade Speech and Drama Elective class is hard at work building its ensemble. Here they are pictured doing “Mirror”. Through exercises like Mirror, Trust Walk, and Rainstorm, they showed great focus, concentration, and super strong teamwork. We will be able to accomplish much and take vocal and physical risks this semester using the trust that is built through a strong ensemble.
Happy last day of school!
The end of a school year always comes with mixed emotions for students; some are happy to be gone from school, and others know that they will miss their friends, teachers, and learning. I feel the same! I love the energy of the students and my school friends, and I love learning and growing, but I look forward to the summer activities. We will be taking a family vacation to the Black Hills and spending a lot of time swimming, going to the zoo, and taking care of summer home projects. Have a wonderful summer, and I look forward to growing with you again in the fall! I will keep you in my prayers.
4th Quarter in 5th Grade – We finished the year with nursery rhyme skits. Students were arranged in groups. They wrote original short scripts based on nursery rhymes and then performed them for their class. An added bonus was that they got to use the lights that were set up for the 7th/8th grade elective classes.
4th Quarter in 6th Grade – Sixth graders finished the year out with their “Where Do I See God?” speeches. These were 3-5 minutes long and were structured with a 3-point thesis. Students learned much about having a clear introduction with a hook and thesis, followed by main points with details, and ending with a review of the thesis and memorable closing. We heard many excellent speeches about how sixth graders see God in their moms, their dads, their grandparents, the saints and Mass, music, and MANY speeches about experiencing God most in nature. If you are the parent of a sixth grader, please ask him/her to present the speech for you!
4th Quarter in Speech and Drama Electives – Seventh and Eighth grade electives finished off the year with monologues and then a tidbit of Shakespeare. We can’t have a Drama class without the Bard… Some of the students’ interest was very piqued by the language and themes of Shakespeare, so they will surely get deeper dives in high school. We got to enjoy a beautiful day out on the lot with some stage combat- sword fighting! We emphasized safety and fight choreography.
Some students got to finish off the year with a few rounds of Guesstures… It was highly competitive!
Have a wonderful summer!
Mrs. Martinez
Speech Team is so excited to share with the community all the work they have been doing on their speech events. We will meet in the gym for prayer and a few brief announcements. Then we will split off to different performances in the fourth and fifth grade classrooms as well as the art and music rooms.
Use the QR code if you would like a sneak peek of the program.
Happy Catholic Schools Week! We have enjoyed celebrating Mass at both St. Pius X Parish and St. Leo the Great Parish. Students have participated in spelling bees and retreats. We had some awesome assemblies. To finish off our great celebration of Catholic schools, please join us for Drama Club’s production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!
Performances are this Friday and Saturday at 7:00pm in our school gym. The play should last about an hour. Each night features a different cast, and each actor is able to put his/her own unique spin on the characters. Students are working so hard and are doing a beautiful job. When they are not acting onstage, they are the tech crew for the opposite cast.
Break a leg, Drama Club!
Sadly, the first semester of Speech and Drama Elective classes for seventh and eighth grade students is coming to a close. Their skills have grown immensely, and we have built a strong ensemble.
To finish off the semester, they each chose a speech event for a final project. Some students cut down full-length works into 6-10-minute original cuttings, an incredible feat all on its own. Then, they applied their voice and body skills to events such as Poetry, Dramatic Interpretation, Duet Acting, Declamation, and more. We video taped their performances so that students could reflect upon their hard work. Way to go, seventh and eighth graders! I am so proud of you.
I would like to send warm Christmas blessings to all of our SPSL students and families. I pray that you have a holy holiday and are able to rest and enjoy family and friends and rejoice in the celebration of the birth of our Lord.
Some fifth graders chose to spend their recess this week making beautiful music! We played Christmas carols on the tone chimes. On Wednesday, we even got to have a very special Pre-K audience for “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night”.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Love,
Mrs. Martinez
As a culminating project for Quarter 1, seventh and eighth grade students in our speech and drama elective wrote and performed original monologues. The monologues needed to be 30 seconds to 1 minute in length and feature a TREASURED ITEM.
Their monologue writing went beyond a simple “show and tell” and instead highlighted a character, which they performed using their actor tools.Since we recently finished our technical theatre lighting unit, students also designed and executed lights for their performance.
Some students chose to add additional props or costumes, and ALL students showed great mastery of our first quarter drama concepts.
This week we have been focusing on special topics in theatre, including stage combat! Students got to enjoy the beautiful fall weather outside to learn positions for stage combat using “swords” and created their own combinations to stage sword fights.
Most importantly, they learned how to achieve a safe environment with only PRACTICED stage combat.
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Big thanks to the 7th and 8th grade student volunteers who have been helping round up all of the 5th and 6th graders to help them tie-dye their shirts for their costumes.
The tie-dye shirts are as unique as the students themselves- What a beautiful tapestry God has created!
We look forward to sharing Godspell, Jr. with you on Wednesday and Thursday, November 15th and 16th.
The 7th and 8th grade Drama elective students worked to design and pull costumes for the leads as part of their costuming unit. 
7th and 8th grade students in the Speech and Drama elective classes have finished up their first unit on ensemble and actor tools. They explored the “Given Circumstances” or “the givens” of who, what, when, where, and why that comprise every scene. They worked in groups with an excerpt from Stuart Little to create scenes by modifying these given circumstances. In these photos, they used tableau to explore the use of body as an actor tool. Students then found creative ways to use basic set pieces to achieve a “where” to modify their scenes and actor choices.
We have started into our Theatre Tech units with costuming. Students have examined the role of the costume designer. They have researched the clothing of the 1960s/70s to understand the historical perspective and look for the 5th/6th grade musical, Godspell Jr. and have created a design/vision board for the costumes. They started work as a costume crew by pulling from our costume storage.
I earned my BA in Secondary Education (Speech/Theatre) from UNO and an additional teaching endorsement in Language Arts from the College of Saint Mary. This is my 17th year of teaching at SPSL, including two years substitute teaching. I have taught seventh grade Literature, English, Vocabulary, Geography, and Religion as well as sixth grade Religion, Guided Reading, and Skills. This year I am thrilled to be able to share my passion for theatre in 5th-8th grade Drama and Speech class!
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