During this year 2013-2014 I am teaching 'Drama Techniques' as an extra-curricular activity. It is aimed to children aged 4 and 5 years old and occurs once a week for 45 minutes. The idea that I have in mind is to do a small performance in the classroom every week: students will watch a short video about a story that they will later represent in small groups using materials provided by the teacher, and then, they will create their own materials to perform the story again.
THE THREE LITTLE PIGS
Materials:
1. Video of the story:
THE THREE LITTLE PIGS
Materials:
1. Video of the story:
2. Script of the story:
| script.pdf |
3. Puppets and houses:
 | |||
These are some examples of the materials I created myself:
  |   |  |
The stage:
I don't really have a budget to create materials for this subject so everything I do is very simple and handmade. I have realised that children do not need "much" to have fun and learn. It is the way and motivation you put into it what makes the difference.
To create the little pigs' house, I drew them on a cardboard, coloured them and laminated them. I picked three chairs from the classroom and placed them around the classroom. They represent each house. I stuck the picture of each house on the back of each chair with tape. When sticking the straw and stick house, I made sure that half of the picture was not touching the chair so when it is time to perform the scene where the wolf blows it, it can fall down easily.
Procedures:
1. Pre-teach vocabulary related to the story. You can show the materials your created to foster their understanding of the story. Make sure you mention basic vocabulary such as: pigs, straw house, stick house, brick house, wolf, build, and blow.
2. Play the story on the SmartBoard. You can also retell the story at the same time as the video to promote their comprehension.
3. Ask students to create groups according to the role they want to play. In case there are too many students for the same role, you will decide who will do which role. I only have 12 students in my classroom so the story will be performed three times. It is the perfect number of times because it is not too high to make children get bored and it helps students memorise their lines.
4. When representing the story you have two options: You can play the video or you can read the script and be the narrator. If you feel that your students won't be able to reproduce the language in the video or the script you can reduce the number of sentences and make the script even simpler. This is what I usually do. Sometimes I also pause the video after a couple of lines so students can repeat what they just heard. I don't expect my students to reproduce every line, of course, but I want them to be able to say at least the key words.
5. I also encourage the audience to say aloud some of the lines so they play an active role when watching the performance.
6. Once everyone has had the chance to perform, they go to their desks to colour the worksheet with the main characters of the story.
1. Pre-teach vocabulary related to the story. You can show the materials your created to foster their understanding of the story. Make sure you mention basic vocabulary such as: pigs, straw house, stick house, brick house, wolf, build, and blow.
2. Play the story on the SmartBoard. You can also retell the story at the same time as the video to promote their comprehension.
3. Ask students to create groups according to the role they want to play. In case there are too many students for the same role, you will decide who will do which role. I only have 12 students in my classroom so the story will be performed three times. It is the perfect number of times because it is not too high to make children get bored and it helps students memorise their lines.
4. When representing the story you have two options: You can play the video or you can read the script and be the narrator. If you feel that your students won't be able to reproduce the language in the video or the script you can reduce the number of sentences and make the script even simpler. This is what I usually do. Sometimes I also pause the video after a couple of lines so students can repeat what they just heard. I don't expect my students to reproduce every line, of course, but I want them to be able to say at least the key words.
5. I also encourage the audience to say aloud some of the lines so they play an active role when watching the performance.
6. Once everyone has had the chance to perform, they go to their desks to colour the worksheet with the main characters of the story.
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