NEW SHOW PREVIEW!

"Little Elephant Has A Ball" was developed by Magical Moonshine Theatre for the Puppetry In The Preschool and Beyond conference, April 2009, presented for the Early Childhood Development program at Contra Costa College. The concept behind the program was two fold:

1. To create a performance that was developmentally appropriate for 2 year olds through 6-7 year olds-

2. To show the preschool teachers in attendance how they could create puppet shows around classroom and developmental issues.

Special thanks to Barbara Grillo, Director of Montessori Education & Professor Early Childhood Education at Contra Costa College, and Stephanie Holdermann, MFA Early Childhood Development and teacher at Bing Nursery at Stanford University for acting as consultants in developing "Little Elephant Has A Ball."

THE STORY: "Little Elephant Has A Ball" is a simple story based on the fact that young children often find themselves playing in groups with different skill levels. As the play opens, children are taught hand movements and words for the song "In the Jungle" (the lion sleeps tonight) and all sing (with live instrument and singing) as Lion settles in for a nap. Enter Little Elephant who finds a ball and begins to play by herself. Monkey comes and they begin to play together but Monkey is more skilled and soon the ball gets stuck in a tree. Zebra comes and all try to figure out how to get the ball down (with suggestions from the children in the audience) and finally do so. Zebra also is a good ball player and soon Monkey and Zebra forget all about Little Elephant as their play moves off-stage, leaving Little Elephant alone. She sings "Nobody Likes Me" and afterwards Lion tells her that everybody is good at something. Little Elephant tells Lion what she is good at. Enter Monkey and Zebra chasing the ball, and Lion points out that Little Elephant is sad that they left to play without her. They come up with a new game that they all can play together, and end singing Lion his lullaby.

"Little Elephant Has A Ball" is presented with a simple table top presentation by Michael and Valerie who bring their 30 years of musical puppet experience to create this age appropriate, engaging and funny yet poignant tale to "few-year-olds." Spanish English version also available.

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Little Elephant finds a fall and plays.

Zebra, Little Elephant and Monkey sit sadly because the ball is stuck in the tree, and they can't (yet) figure out how to get it down.