This delightful ballet takes place on a farm years ago, which provides lots to explore with our STEAM extra resource page!
Royal Ballet’s La Fille Mal Gardee leaves YouTube FRIDAY! WATCH BEFORE IT’S GONE!
La Fille Mal Gardee
Science: Alain Flies with his Umbrella
In La Fille Mal Gardee, the silly boy Alain carries his umbrella with him even when it doesn’t look cloudy. It looks like he’s afraid of the rain, but at the end of the first act, the wind sweeps him up into the sky and carries him away! Of course, this is impossible, but that’s why it’s silly! Or, Alain knew something we didn’t?
Most of the time, when wind hits an umbrella, it looks like this.
We are SO HEAVY the umbrella can’t lift us up…but what if we’re not holding the umbrella? It can fly open or fly away if the wind gets it just right. Umbrellas can just fly off if they aren’t tied down.
ACTIVITY: If you have a cocktail umbrella (of if you want to make one) and you put it in front of a fan, it float away! You can’t make it float unless the umbrella is open and the wind is approaching from under the bell. You can even make it float by blowing.
Technology: Wheat to Flour
Wheat is where flour comes from, and we need flour to make bread. And it takes A LOT of work to turn wheat in to flour!!
Wheat is bundled to be THRESHED more easily. In threshing, wheat berries come out their stalks. This farm in Morgan Hill does it with a pillow case!
Wheat is a long, tall plant and at the top of each stalk are a bunch of wheat berries.
Threshing breaks the stalk and chaff and the berry has to be separated in a process called WINNOWING. This animation calls it “Methods of Separation” and this is where children can get really involved looking at the berries as they vary in shape, size and wight from the chaff or the bits of wheat shaft that always stay in the mix.
People are incredibly creative with threshing. This family made their own thresher out of a bucket. After the berries are cleaned and separate, the wheat can be ground into flour. In this video, you see Mill Stones grind the wheat twice to get flour!
This fellow grew a plot of wheat in his backyard and shows you harvest to flour in 5minutes! Today, it’s all modernized, but the basics remain the same.
Engineering: Locks and Keys
Do you remember when Auntie locked Lise into the house? Did you notice that key was different than the keys your family might use to get into your house?
That key is old! And in England, where buildings are quite old, it’s still fairly common for people to use old locks like that. This is why most of the videos you’ll find about old LEVER LOCK works come from the United Kingdom. This short video shows you how the lever works. Notice the locksmith’s accent:-)
This lovely animation addresses the inner workings of a modern lock with clarity!
Locks and keys are wonderful simple machines. Locks/Keys are both practical end intellectual tools so early education features a lot of activities with them . The blog No Time for Flashcards shows wonderful matching games to do at home with padlocks and luggage locks, and Voila Montessori argues locks can build resilience!
Art: Spinning & Weaving
Lise and Colas show they like each other early in La Fille Mal Gardee, when he hands her the end of a big ribbon and they twirl the ribbon into a big CATS CRADLE.
Cats cradles are a kind of weaving, but it’s also an old game. This video shows how to set up and play Cat’s Cradle. All you need is string you can tie into a loop. Mom’s Minivan has trickier examples, but once your child figures out one Cat’s Cradle variant, it’s quiet fun for a long time!
Weaving is really important on a farm and so is SPINNING! Spinning is what you do to weave wool or cotton into yarn. From yarn you can make sweaters and scarves. Lise and her Aunt weave together.
This wonderful video shows you how a spinning wheel works. Ask your child if s/he hears the Scottish accent of the weaver.
Did you noice the lovely MAYPOLE everyone dances around at the end of the first act? You can make your own Maypole at home!This adorable Waldorf teacher shares both a song and a model you could copy for a miniature indoor maypole. I especially like this tutorial which the Highland Plains Historical Society (#PPHMAtHome) uploaded just this May. This has a long tradition, and it’s also useful for teaching braiding, so you don’t need to instruct about it exclusive to May or May Day. You can see how this could get really elaborate, but how wonderful to see one that’s simple and easy! And this coloring book has some wonderful offerings, one which is available to print.
Math: (Music) Meter & Time Signatures
La Fille Male Gardee has lots fun songs that play with tempo. Consider the Clog dance in the first act. This might be an easy example to use with your child because the clogs are a percussion instrument and part of the dancing at the same time. You’ll hear the music go fast four times and slow on the fifth. The music signature is 12/8, which explains the speed but the point of my example is that you can count the tempo by counting the sound of the clogs and that’s an apt introduction to
Most of my dancers are 3-6, however, I do have a community of lower elementary children from 6-10 and those children could approach the topic of music and math with an approach using pizza (fractions). I had a hard time learning my notes as a child, but I bet if someone explained it to me with a pizza, I’d have learned faster!
Steps: Asymmetrical jumps
Coloring the following coloring pages will help the dancer see the difference between symmetry and asymmetry as well as the position of the feet as they’re expected to be IN MID AIR. Since the children don’t really get to observe their feet in the air, these study tools (ahem, coloring pages) are the next best thing.
THIS SHOULD BE FUN! We’re beginning with sauté, to remind the children when you jump you MUST point your toes and stretch your knees. In fairness, Sauté (aka temps levé) is a symmetrical jump (both legs do the same thing) and while it demonstrates fundamentals, it’s won’t prepare them for asymmetrical jumps.
After sauté, the children will practice dégagé for stronger feet and to build into glissade, petit jete and assemblé. In other months, we learn sissonne and if the children are ready to zoom through these jumps, I’ll definitely test their abilities!
