Get on stage!

Hi everyone! 

Today in class, my classmates and I have done a drama activity in group. It has been a short `morality´ play based on traditional story elements, in 7 scenes, called: The wise Woman. 

Before start telling you my experience, I would like to leave you some information about the play.

• Synopsis: When the king decides to ban old people from the town, this means a lot of pain and sorrow for old and young. But things get worse... and finally even the king understand that if it wasn´t for a young old boy and his mother, the country would be in serious trouble.

• Roles: chorus 4-6, soldier 1-4, Men 1-2, Women 1-2, old woman, her son, Queen and wise men 1-2. 

• Runtime : 7-8 minutes, more or less

• English level:  intermediate-B1

First of all I have to say that i don´t usually like drama activities. For that reason, I was scared when Susana, my teacher, explained us the activity. 

Initially, we were going to divide the class into several groups but we thought it is best to do it all together. So we chose a play with many characters and an adequate level of English. Then, we started to rehearse. It took us a few days to learn it. 

From my point of view, the result was great! We have all gotten into our role. We have disguised ourselves and we have represented the play several times.

After that, Susana showed us a video that taught us how to improve our performance (how to focus our voice, how to place ourselves in the space, the way to act, the way to move around the space...) 

It has been a good way to work in group helping, collaborating and sharing ideas and opinions. 

The truth is that it has been quite fun. 

storytelling activities

The other day in class, our teacher, Susana, explained us different activities to do before, while and after a storytelling. 

What I did with my classmates Samanta and Raquel was to invent different activities in relation to some stories. 

In order to give you an idea, below I leave you the activities that we did. Keep in mind that these activities are for children in early childhood education. Nevertheless, I hope you like them and that they help you to carry out your own activities. 

The rainbow fish: 

• We will show the children the cover of the book so they can make predictions. 
• We will talk about what they know about fishes (descriptions, experiences...)
• We will teach them what the scales are and what they are for
• They will be sticking or taking off the scales of a fish that we have done
• We will ask them to gesticulate the fish´s feelings
• Finally we will ask them to draw their own fish

Five little monkeys: 

• We will make them jump imitating the monkeys 
• We will teach them parts of the body with the song "head and shoulders" 
• They will count the monkeys during the song
• They will touch the aforementioned body parts 
• Finally we ask them about their feelings and experiences when they falling and hurting themselves 

The hare and the tortoise: 

• We will ask them to imitate the way of walking of different animals 
• We will work animals with some flashcard activities 
• They will run fast when the hace comes out and slowly when the turtle comes out. 
• Finally we will ask them to draw their favourite part of the story

Frog: 

• We will teach them different river animals using the "What missing?" flashcard technique
• We will play a dice play with the flashcards
• They will have to point the animals that we will mention in the story (without making mistakes)
• Finally we will ask them some questions about the story 

The mouse and the lion: 

• We will show them the cover of the book so they guess what the story is about 
• We will work the terms "big" and "small" with "big and small" song 
• They will have to make predictions throughout the story 
• They will imitate the gestures made by the lion and the mouse during the story
• Finally, we will ask them to represent their favourite part of the story (dramatization)

Using storybooks: Reading or telling stories?

Today I am going to answer the following question, than I find very interesting: Reading or telling stories?

Well, as my teachers Irune and Susana have taught me over these years, there are books that are made for read and other ones that are made for tell. Is very important to know which of these strategies is better to use in each case.

What I mean is that there are books we must read, because they have beautiful texts that have been written to be read; that have rhymes, instructions or sentences that can not be change because a variation change all the story. But, there are other books that we can learn by heart. That is, we can read them several times to learn the story and then tell them with our own words.  This allows us to make the necessary variations to adapt the story to our students (vocabulary, sentences, words...)

For all these reasons, my answer is that in infant education we have to use both of them. As teachers, we have to be able to choose properly. If we do not do it well, it can affect in the motivation or in the correct understanding of the story. 

Puppets

Puppets are very useful tools to encourage creative play and vocabulary development. They can be also great for us (teachers) to help we feel comfortable. In fact, they’re not only extremely useful as an educational toy that connects play with learning but also in supporting children’s development in several important areas.

When we use puppets, stories come to life so that the telling of the story becomes an enriched, fun learning experience that is even more meaningful for children. The puppets can speak, sing, dance, cry...There is truly no limit to their use because there is no specific way to use them that’s correct.

I believe that the most important thing, as teachers, is be able to motivate our children. In my humble opinion, this is a really useful way to keep our students engaged and enhance the interaction.  What I mean is that, by capturing children’s attention, motivating them, they will learn more.

Personally I think I will use puppets in my future class. Nevertheless, I think they are very expensive and I would like to have several puppets so, instead of buying them, I will do them by myself.  To make them we need imagination and very cheap materials such as socks, felt, glue, cardboards...

To end, I leave you some examples of puppets (sock puppet and finger puppets) that I have made and the video that I recorded with my classmates.  

Butterfly sock puppet 

The ugly duckling finger puppets 

The ugly duckling finger puppets