I bought a simple little wooden theatre: you put huge sheets with pictures into the slot which in this photo shows the red curtain - and then I tell the story - with many comments from the audience.
The audience was taught to behave: they show their little entrance card, sit in a row in front of the theatre, and applaud loudly before the curtain raises.
A fairy tale as "The Frog King" is a bit diluted by the makers of the sheets - but "Nana" (that's me) does NOT let out the part of the King: "What you have promised, that you have to keep!"
Interesting: little children, though oh so sweet, can be quite cruel: the threesome cries out loudly that they think it utterly right that the princess throws the ugly frog against the wall when he insists on climbing into their little bed... "But the princess promised..."
Raucuous laughter: "We would throw him with gusto at the wall, yes, we would!!!"
Come to think of it: good so. A very clear attitude, no rotten compromise. :-)
We sometimes had puppet theatres behind the settee - the children hiding around the back and the top being the stage. There were some brilliant moments. I remember Nethew about 8-years-old moving a teddy bear across the 'stage' and saying, "I'm going to the party as a bear. Oh! Just a minute. I AM a bear."
ReplyDeleteI remember the story :) When the princess got furious and picked the frog up from her bed and threw him against the wall in disgust. Suddenly, the nasty frog turned into a handsome prince.
DeleteBut in a modern film, The Princess and the Frog, a young woman met a Prince who’d been turned into a frog by an evil doctor. Mistaking her for a princess and hoping to break the spell, the Prince kissed the unfortunate lady and turned her into a frog. Your girls might have been right!
Dear Tasker, I remember that form of theatre as well. It was always funny. The quote by Nephew is brilliant - it deserves a place in Winnie-the-Pooh!
DeleteDear Helen, in the version of Gebrüder Grimm the happy end is as you describe. I always laughed about a version of "Rotkäppchen" Little Red-Riding-Hood by James Thurber, were the girl took a revolver out of her cookie-basket and shot the wolf: "Moral: Little girls nowadays are not as gullible as in former times."
DeleteYour modern version of the Frog King is very interesting too - a frog can lead a young or not so young woman into disaster!
What a great idea for the children - so much better than watching TV!
ReplyDeleteThe triplets must be so much fun (and work!), hard to believe they are heading toward age 4 already - how fast time flies! What age will they start school in Germany?
You are a good Nana dear Britta X
Thank you, Mary, I bathe in that compliment.
DeleteIn Germany you enter school with 6 - first they will go to Kindergarten in September (most children much earlier).
And yes: a lot of work and fun they are - but since language and more self-reliance come up, it is a big step for us all.
And as you say: time hurries in big steps too!
Two and three are my favorite ages for children. They can communicate their thoughts (and they have many) and they are so honest because they have not yet learned to be otherwise. To have three of them must be both fun and tiring.
ReplyDeleteDear Emma, I agree: three is a magic age! They can tell you their often very funny or deep observations, and they are honest - a brilliant virtue not diluted by politeness. (Though normally I consider politeness as valuable).
DeleteI hope they will maintain that innocence for a while, and I am deeply grateful that they have the luck to live in so good circumstances, well knowing that this isn't the rule.
We had no television when I was a child, and my brothers and I made up and acted out the characters we invented for the things we built with our Lincoln Logs and Legos.
ReplyDeleteOur son did that too, dear Joanne: he invented so many stories about a dog and the dog's family (I wrote them up), that the children in kindergarten wanted to borrow that dog.
DeleteWhen the women on a market stall asked him if he collected the leaves under the stall for his bunny he said: "No, I collect them for my imaginary dog!" - which was double funny because in German "imaginary and conceited" are the same word :-)
Your family are wise to keep the triplets away from the TV for as long as possible - phones too. Many children today are missing out on those precious moments spent doing activites, learning, and reading with their parents, grannies too - technology having already taken over their lives.
ReplyDeleteDear Rosemary, I utterly agree: children have a very vivid imagination, and it would be a pity to shower that with too many media. I am not against TV or cinema per se - but at a different age. It is as with sweets: too much is - too much. We can choose what we "feed" for some time - and enlarge the radius by and by.
DeleteI do understand those tired mothers who scroll through their cellphones instead of talking with their child in a pram - so: I do not judge - but I think it is a pity too when they miss conversation with their child.
I think it awful when out of sheer laziness children are put in front of the telly - or, even worse: own a TV set in their child's room - as a class-mate of my son: the parents didn't know what their 6 year old son watched every evening, and not how long.