2014/15
onstage
R e s o u r c e
G u i d e
The wild kratts live!
mon, apr 20, 2015
The Wild Kratts Live!
Overture Center – OnStage 1 Dear Teachers,
In this resource guide, you will find valuable information that
will help you apply your academic goals to your students’
performance experience. We have included suggestions
for activities that can help you prepare students to see this
performance, ideas for follow-up activities and additional
resources you can access on the web. Along with these
activities and resources, we’ve also included the applicable
Wisconsin Academic Standards in order to help you align the
experience with your curriculum requirements.
This Educator’s Resource Guide for this Onstage presentation
of the Wild Kratts Live! is designed to:
• Extend the scholastic impact of the performance by
providing discussion ideas, activities and further reading that
promote learning across the curriculum;
• Promote arts literacy by expanding students’ knowledge of
music, science, storytelling and theatre;
• Illustrate that the arts are a legacy reflecting the values,
custom, beliefs, expressions and reflections of a culture;
• Use the arts to teach about the cultures of other people and
to celebrate students’ own heritage through self-reflection;
• Maximize students’ enjoyment and appreciation of the
performance.
We hope this performance and the suggestions in
this resource guide will provide you and your students
opportunities to apply art learning in your curricula, expanding
it in new and enriching ways.
Enjoy the Show!
Table of Contents
About the Wild Kratts Live!.........................2
Activity: the Senses.....................................3
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Follow this link:
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Activity: Electrostatic Fields........................4
Create a Scene.............................................5
Create your own Creature Suit Power..........8
Animal Identification...................................9
Drama Activity: Bugs and Butterflies........ 10
Books to Read............................................ 13
Academic Standards.................................. 14
About Live Performance............................ 15
The Wild Kratts Live!
Overture Center – OnStage 2 About Wild Kratts
Join the adventures of Chris and Martin Kratt as they
encounter incredible wild animals, combining science
education with fun and adventure, while traveling to
animal habitats around the globe. Each adventure
explores an age-appropriate science concept central
to an animal’s life and showcases a never-before-seen
wildlife moment. It’s all wrapped up in engaging stories of
adventure, mystery, rescue, and the Kratt brothers’ brand
of laugh-out-loud-comedy that kids love.
The real-life Chris and Martin introduce each Wild Kratts
episode with a live action segment that imagines what it
would be like to experience a never- before-seen wildlife
moment, and asks, “What if…?” The Kratt brothers
transition into animation and the adventure begins,
bringing early-elementary school children into the secret
lives of extraordinary creatures, many of which have never
been animated before – including proboscis monkeys,
draco lizards and caracals!
Aided by the brilliant hi-tech inventor and scientist Aviva
Corcovado and her team, the adventuring brothers can
activate their Creature Power Suits to fly with peregrine
falcons, tag along remora-style with a great white shark,
or dive to the bottom of the sea with whales and colossal
squid! From meeting a young elephant who uses the
physics of suction to bring water into her trunk, to poison
arrow frogs who use chemistry as their defense, to
peregrine falcons who harness the force of gravity to fly
so fast, the brothers and viewers learn that animals can
take you anywhere in science!
Animated Kratt Brothers, Martin and Chris, “come to
real life” in a classic Wild Kratts story. In “To the Creature
Rescue!” the Kratt Brothers activate some fan favorite
Creature Power Suits to confront a comic villain. Through
hilarious pratfalls and amazing animal ‘wow facts’ the Wild
Kratts team rescues a helpless animal friend and returns
her home “Living Free and in the Wild!”
The Wild Kratts Live!
Overture Center – OnStage 3 Activity: the Senses
Ages 5-8
Kids are naturally interested in their own bodies. Having
five senses is something most take for granted, but kids
are curious to understand what senses are and how they
help us communicate with our environment. Animals
have similar senses to ours and through learning about
the five senses, your students can begin to compare
human and animals senses.
Objectives: Making observations, practice conducting
a scientific experiment, and learn about collecting and
recording data.
Materials:
Set up a table with some of the following items:
• some different tastes (ex: sweet, sour, salty)
• some items with different textures (ex: smooth, soft, rough)
• some closed containers with different sounding items inside (ex: cotton balls, marbles, pennies)
• some cotton balls with drops of different food extracts (one extract per cotton ball)
Procedure:
1. Put a blindfold on your student and start with the different tastes. Have the student try to identify the taste
without being able to see the food. As you move across the table (and the senses) be sure to talk with your
child about using different senses to gather information. Ask questions about how the touch items feel, how the
different containers sound. Have them compare and contrast how easy or hard it is to identify different items
using one sense at a time.
2. Afterward you can have your child test you in the same way. Mix up the items and see how well you do identifying
each using only one sense at a time!
Take It Further - The Sense of Sight
Inquire about visiting a local organization for assistance dogs to the visually impaired. If possible, try to set up a visit
with someone who uses an assistance dog for help. Talk about how the dog aids the person to see in their everyday
environment.
Wild Kratts Video
In this short video on Aviva Corcovado explores the “sixth sense” of the platypus using electricity:
http://www.pbs.org/parents/wildkratts/activities/discoveringsenses/?guid=0c9cb82e-f892-402d-8a27-e588f8a3cb5b
The Wild Kratts Live!
Overture Center – OnStage 4 Activity: Electrostatic Attraction
Ages 6-8
Lizards represent a large group of reptiles with thousands of different species. Each lizard has characteristics that help
it live and thrive in it’s particular environment. These activities will enable your students to explore the diversity of
lizards in terms of characteristics, behavior, habitat and help them to identify the special characteristics of lizards that
help lizards thrive in their habitat.
In 2002 the great mystery of how geckos can climb smooth walls and ceilings was finally uncovered. Scientists found
that geckos use electrostatic forces in order to keep a firm grip when climbing on smooth walls and across ceilings.
Each gecko toe has tiny hairs that branch out into hundreds of tiny endings. Each branch of the hair (also called setae)
attach to the surface by a weak electrostatic attraction. A tokay gecko has 6.5 million setae that each branch into
hundreds of ends—together these create enough electrostatic attraction to support the weight of two human adults!
Gecko toes can detach from a surface in milliseconds, and don’t have any residue.
Objectives: Students will practice analysis, observation, conducting an experiment
Materials:
• 1 balloon
• A flat surface (wall, sheet of plywood)
• A stop watch
• A table to record results (be sure to have columns for Time Charged, Time Held, and Surface)
Procedure:
1. One of the best ways to explore electrostatic attraction is the balloon test. Have your students blow up the balloon
and tie it off. They should rub the balloon on their hair for 10 seconds to start (mark this time in the Time Charged
column) Have them move to the wall (or flat surface) immediately after and try to suspend their balloon gently on
the wall (place it gently against the wall). Measure the length of time the balloon stays suspended against the wall.
2. Continue the experiment varying the amount of time the balloons are charged by rubbing against the head.
3. Another option is to vary the surface to which the balloon is suspended. Try incorporating glass, a wall, a
blackboard, a flat piece of wood. Encourage your students
to seek out other options for the experiment and be sure
to record all the results.
Reflection:
What variables resulted in the longest suspension of a balloon?
Did the charge time make a different in the suspension time
of the balloon?
Did different surfaces make a difference in how well the
balloon suspended?
The Wild Kratts Live!
Overture Center – OnStage 5 Create a Scene
Ages 3-5
You can print these pages to make cut-outs for your students to create the scenes. Note that the Orangatang is part
of the live show!
The Wild Kratts Live!
Overture Center – OnStage 6 Create a Scene
Ages 3-5
You can print these pages to make cut-outs for your students to create the scenes. Note that the Orangatang is part
of the live show!
The Wild Kratts Live!
Overture Center – OnStage 7 Create a Scene
Ages 3-5
You can print these pages to make cut-outs for your students to create the scenes. Note that the Orangatang is part
of the live show!
The Wild Kratts Live!
Overture Center – OnStage 8 Draw Your Own Creature Power Suit
Ages 3-5
You can print these pages to make cut-outs for your students to create the scenes. Note that the Orangatang is part
of the live show!
The Wild Kratts Live!
Animal Identification
Ages 6-8
Use these desecriptions to identify some of the animals in the scene on the next page.
Overture Center – OnStage 9 The Wild Kratts Live!
Animal Identification
Overture Center – OnStage 10 The Wild Kratts Live!
Overture Center – OnStage 11 Drama Activity: Bugs and Butterflies
Ages 5-6
Purpose: Getting acquainted with drama and performance,
exploring perceptions through drama, and exploring what
students know about the world of insects.
Objectives: Students will use imagination, movement,
concentration, and simple characterization to become insects.
The students will be introduced to drama and performance.
The students will explore the perception of self and others
through story dramatization.
Materials:
• Paper
• markers
• masking tape
• tambourine and/or music player
• cricket sounds
• butterfly puppets
• images of insects, and optionally
• I Wish I Were a Butterfly by James Howe (or another
book of your choice)
Scott Robinson, Nightlight, Flickr
Proceedure:
1. Place pictures of various insect around the room, and discuss what they think of these insects. If they wanted to be
an insect, what would they be? Would they like to fly, crawl, or dig?
2. Gather students into a circle, and ask them to share their insect of choice. All at once, have the students show how
that insect moves, then how it sounds, then how it sleeps.
3. Sit in a circle, and discuss - what is drama, what is acting, and pretend? Have you ever seen a play? Have you ever
seen someone play music live? How was it different from watching a movie, or listening to a recording?
4. Bug Walk! Have students move around the room, and call out various insects: cricket, lightning bug, glow worm,
lady bug, dragon fly, butterfly. You can offere physical adjustments to try: move forwards, backwards, or walk on
your toes or heels. Optionally, you can call for the students to freeze between each switch. Once the students
have got the hang of this, try adding feelings and emotions to individual insects: happy, sad, angry, distracted,
ecstatic, shy, curious, kind, lonely, silly, worried. At the end, have everyone come to sitting or sleeping again.
5. Growing insects. Many insects change forms throughout their life, such as a lightning bug starting as a larva
or “glow worm,” and a caterpillar turning in to a butterfly. Have the students pretend we are all in a tiny little
caterpillar egg. Grow-grow-grow, hatch out of egg and are caterpillars. Find leaves, eat, find place to make a
chrysalis. Grow in chrysalis, transform into butterfly, come out of chrysalis, fly around!
The Wild Kratts Live!
Overture Center – OnStage 12 6. Tell the students to fly all around you - it’s time to tell a story. I Wish I Were a Butterfly by James Howe
Note: You do not have to use this story. You can either end the activity here, or if there is another that works better for
your students, you can easily adapt the following to your chosen book. The goal is to have the children identify one or
two characters, embody them, then discuss. For some other suggestions, see “Books to Read” on page 13.
7. Read up to Old One. Discuss with the students, what is happening in story? Why? What do you think the old one
is? What will the old one tell the little cricket?
8. Have the students make cricket sounds. Returning to the previous activity, have all students become the little
cricket. Have them show how their little cricket stands, how little cricket walks. Show how their little cricket is
feeling. Have them practice what they will tell, and ask the old one.
9. In comes the Old Spider - you can either be the Spider, or have the students imagine him. Have the students tell
Old Spider what is going on. You can bring the conversation to the idea of beauty and perceptions.
10. Tell end of the story.
11. Reflection
12. Has anyone ever said something about you that wasn’t true? Like the frog? Why did the frog do that?
13. Did you ever say something like that to someone else?
• How do you think someone feels if they hear that?
• Did you ever want to be something else? What? Why?
• Do you think the cricket is happy now? Why?
• If you could give the cricket any advice what would it be?
The Wild Kratts Live!
Overture Center – OnStage 13 Books to Read
Aliki. My Five Senses. New York: Crowell, 1989. Ages 5-7.
A simple presentation of the five senses, demonstrating some ways we use them.
Arnosky, Jim. Field Trips: Bug Hunting, Animal Tracking, Bird Watching, Shore Walking with Jim Arnosky. New York:
Harper Collins, 2002. Ages 8-12.
Ready to become a young naturalist? Arnosky explains how easy it is to become an observer of birds, bugs, and other
creatures near us most of the time.
Bredeson, Carmen. Fun Facts about Lizards! Berkeley, NJ: Enslow Elementary, 2008. Ages 6-7
Photographs and text present interesting facts about lizards.
Bruchac, Joseph, and Michael J. Caduto. Native American Animal Stories. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Pub., 1992 Ages 7-13
The traditional stories from the author and Michael J. Caduto’s Keepers of the Animals (Fulcrum, 1991) are excerpted
for this handsomely designed, well-organized volume. With skill and vitality, Bruchac respectfully retells 24 animal
stories from 18 North American tribes. Each story, illustrated with a culturally accurate line drawing, is carefully
documented and put into a cultural context by the author’s scholarly notes at the book’s end. A glossary and
pronunciation guide will prove helpful for storytellers.
Mado, Michio, Mitsumasa Anno, and Michiko. The Animals: Selected Poems. New York: Margaret K. McElderry, 1992.
Ages 5-9
Anno’s detailed, delicate cut-paper figures of creatures decorate the pages of an exquisitely designed book revealing
for new readers the child appeal and wit of Mado’s poems bearing titles such as “Zebra,” “A Dog Walks,” “Sleep” and
“Little Elephant”.
Raschka, Christopher. Five for a Little One. New York: Atheneum for Young Readers, 2006. Ages 4-6
A young rabbit explores the world using his five senses. If you are a bunny, try a taste, take a gander, snuffle a sniff,
relish a sound, and share a hug. Everything around is waiting.
The Wild Kratts Live!
Academic Standards
Overture Center – OnStage 14 Theatre:
predictions, and offer explanations
B.4.1 Pretend to be someone else, creating a character
based on scripted material or through improvisation,
using props, costume pieces, and ideas
C.4.3 Select multiple sources of information to help
answer questions selected for classroom investigations
B.4.2 Create a human or animal character through
physical movement with sounds and/or speech, using
facial expressions
B.4.3 Create a human or animal character based upon a
costume or object (prop)
B.4.4 Create a human or animal character based upon an
original idea
D.4.3 Identify what they need to do to make
their character or scene more believable and/or
understandable
D.4.4 Share their comments constructively and
supportively within the group
Science
A.4.1 When conducting science investigations, ask and
answer questions that will help decide the general areas
of science being addressed
C.4.4 Use simple science equipment safely and
effectively, including rulers, balances, graduated cylinders,
hand lenses, thermometers, and computers, to collect
data relevant to questions and investigations
C.4.5 Use data they have collected to develop
explanations and answer questions generated by
investigations
C.4.6 Communicate the results of their investigations
in ways their audiences will understand by using charts,
graphs, drawings, written descriptions, and various other
means, to display their answers
C.4.7 Support their conclusions with logical arguments
C.4.8 Ask additional questions that might help focus or
further an investigation
F.4.1 Discover how each organism meets its basic needs
for water, nutrients, protection, and energy* in order to
survive
F.4.2 Investigate how organisms, especially plants,
A.4.2 When faced with a science-related problem, decide respond to both internal cues (the need for water) and
what evidence, models, or explanations previously studied external cues (changes in the environment)
can be used to better understand what is happening now
F.4.3 Illustrate the different ways that organisms grow
A.4.3 When investigating a science-related problem,
through life stages and survive to produce new members
decide what data can be collected to determine the most of their type
useful explanations
A.4.4 When studying science-related problems, decide
which of the science themes are important
A.4.5 When studying a science-related problem, decide
what changes over time are occurring or have occurred
C.4.1 Use the vocabulary of the unifying themes to ask
questions about objects, organisms, and events being
studied
C.4.2 Use the science content being learned to ask
questions, plan investigations, make observations, make
The Wild Kratts Live!
Overture Center – OnStage 15 About Live Performance
Theater, unlike movies or television, is a LIVE
performance. This means that the action unfolds
right in front of an audience, and the performance
is constantly evolving. The artists respond to the
audience’s laughter, clapping, gasps and general
reactions. Therefore, the audience is a critical
part of the theater experience. In fact, without
you in the audience, the artists would still be in
rehearsal!
Find Your Seat
When the performance is about to begin, the
lights will dim. This is a signal for the artists and the audience to put aside
conversations. Settle into your seat and get ready to enjoy the show!
You are sharing this
performance space
with the artists and
other audience
members.
Your considerate
behavior allows
everyone to enjoy
a positive theater
experience.
Be sure to use the
restroom before
the show begins!
Look and Listen
There is so much to hear (dialogue, music, sound effects) and so much to
see (costumes, props, set design, lighting) in this performance. Pay close
attention to the artists onstage. Unlike videos, you cannot rewind if you miss
something.
Energy and Focus
Artists use concentration to focus their energy during a performance. The
audience gives energy to the artist, who uses that energy to give life to the
performance. Help the artists focus that energy. They can feel that you are
with them!
Talking to neighbors (even whispering) can easily distract the artists onstage.
They approach their audiences with respect, and expect the same from you
in return. Help the artists concentrate with your attention.
Laugh Out Loud
If something is funny, it’s good to laugh. If you like something a
lot, applaud. Artists are thrilled when the audience is engaged and
responsive. They want you to laugh, cheer, clap and really enjoy
your time at the theater.
Discover New Worlds
Attending a live performance is a time to sit back and look inward,
and question what is being presented to you. Be curious about
new worlds, experience new ideas, and discover people and lives
previously unknown to you. Your open mind, curiosity, and respect
will allow a whole other world to unfold right before your eyes!
Please, don’t feed the
audience.
Food is not allowed in the
theater. Soda and snacks are
noisy and distracting to both
the artists and audience.
Unplug.
Please turn off all cell phones
and other electronics before
the performance.
Photographs and recording
devices are strictly prohibited.
American Girl’s Fund for Children
Funding for this resource guide and the OnStage Performing Arts Series for Students is provided by
a generous grant from American Girl’s Fund for Children, a philanthropic foundation created to
support programs and services for school-age children in Dane County. Since its founding in 1992,
American Girl’s Fund for Children has supported programs in the arts, culture, and environment.
Additional funding provided by the DeAtley Family Foundation, Teresa Welch and Nancy Barklage, The A. Paul Jones Charitable Trust, the
Wisconsin Arts Board, and by contributions to Overture Center for the Arts. Learn how you can help make arts experiences real for hundreds
of thousands of people in the greater Madison area at at overturecenter.org/about/support.
© 2014/15 Overture Center for the Arts
201 State Street, Madison, WI 53703 | 608.258.4165
[email protected] | overturecenter.com