Is your child learning from home due to COVID-19? This Columbus show can help students
A new partnership between The Basics Chattahoochee Valley and the Springer Opera House has produced a show highlighting five simple tools parents and caregivers can use to create an effective learning environment at home for their children.
The show, “Deep Blue Sea,” is a part of the Springer’s Theatre for the Very Young Series. It’s an immersive, educational, theatrical production incorporating five basic principles from early childhood education that caregivers can use to give children a good start in life.
“Children don’t come with a manual and even the best of parents can feel overwhelmed or frustrated and these tools are really just very simple ways to practice and put intentionality behind the act of parenting,”said Grace Nagel, director of The Basics Chattahoochee Valley.
The Basics Chattahoochee Valley is a community-wide initiative housed at the United Way of the Chattahoochee Valley and under the Columbus 2025 initiative to create talented, creative people, Nagel said. They’ve also received significant funding from the Community Foundation of the Chattahoochee Valley to develop programming.
The Basics
The Basics are considered five fun, and simple ways to provide an effective learning environment at home. They are:
▪ Maximize love, manage stress
▪ Talk, sing, and point
▪ Count, group, and compare
▪ Explore through movement and play
▪ Read and discuss stories
“Science shows that if you do these with your child from birth to age 3 and beyond you’re setting them up on a path for success, you’re encouraging their brain development, and they’re just really wonderful ways to bond with your child particularly in this really stressful time that we’re all experiencing right now,” Nagel said.
‘A very natural partnership’
Sally Baker, director of education at the Springer, described the partnership as using the tools of theater to achieve the goals set by The Basics Chattahoochee Valley.
“Once we started talking deeply about what the basics was and what Theatre for the Very Young was we just had to make small adjustments in both,” Baker said,” and it’s a very natural partnership and we’re very, very excited about it.”
The show was created and performed by Springer Theatre Academy students under Baker’s guidance. It follows Tuttle the Turtle as she explores the ocean around her. While playing with friends, Tuttle is hurt by trash dropped into the ocean by fishermen drop trash in the ocean and seeks help from Doctopus, an octopus that’s a doctor. The show is accompanied by music from The Beach Boys.
“Every line, every piece of action that happens is the students’ creation and then we script that and we put it on like a play,” Baker said. “We do that in about two and a half weeks so they work hard and they work fast but they do a great job,” she said.
Important lessons
Along with the five basics the show includes learning goals: The importance of keeping oceans clean, how pollution affects the environment, and how to stay calm and reduce anxiety.
“Even I as a parent, I have learned from this process of doing the basics because it’s just a good reminder of what we should be doing,” Baker said.
“With this partnership we hope that we can show the basics being performed in real time and that parents can reference them later on when they are with their children and say ‘I remember that from the play,’” said Nagel.
“Deep Blue Sea” is performed outdoors with social distancing in the Springer Plaza. Remaining performances are scheduled for Nov. 14 at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. and Nov. 15 at 2 p.m.
Patrons of any age are required to wear a mask until seated in their “bubble,” and encouraged to bring their own lawn chairs and blankets. For more information visit springeroperahouse.org or call 706-327-3688.
