Body Objects: Acting The Dreamer Story

Body Objects: Acting The Dreamer Story How do we get students excited about the details and setting in a story? Dive into the vivid world of The Dreamer, adapted from One Thousand and One Nights by Karen L. Erickson. In this lesson, students in grades 4-12 can practice collaboration, cooperation, and transformation skills by using … Read more

Caps for Sale Lesson

Caps for Sale Lesson Objective: students will learn how to identify and solve dramatic problems. Building on the previous lessons, the students will enjoy acting out the included story of Caps for Sale.  They will interactively learn how to solve problems by wit and not by anger (part of the kindergarten objectives).   Begin the lesson … Read more

Three Billy Goats Gruff Lesson

Three Billy Goats Gruff Lesson Objective: students will learn to identify and imitate the four basic emotions: happy, sad, mad, and scared. Continuing the work from the previous Emotions Lesson in the Kindergarten series, the Three Billy Goats Gruff uses a familiar fairy tale to give the students further practice in expression of the basic … Read more

The Humpty Dumpty Lesson

The Humpty Dumpty Lesson Objective: students identify the three tools (body, mind, voice) in drama. Many children know the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty.  We employ it here for students to practice skills with the body, mind and voice – also known as the actor’s tools (part of the kindergarten objectives).    Students use their body to … Read more

Rabbit, Elephant, Whale Lesson

rabbit_whale_elephant

Rabbit, Elephant, Whale Lesson: Observation & Personification Objective: students will learn how actors use the drama tools to create a character. Students have fun personifying animal characters to create a story of their own design. The students then use the actor’s tools (mind, body, voice) to create a drama using observation (part of the fourth … Read more

The Story of Rabbit, Elephant, and Whale

The Story of Rabbit, Elephant, and Whale  In this story, the rabbit outsmarts the elephant and the whale, both of which use their physical size against the rabbit.  Students like to act out the different parts in this story as they learn that sometimes being wise can counter physical size.  This story is also designed … Read more

The Fire Lesson

The Fire Lesson  Objective: students demonstrate sensory (touch, taste, smell, sight, sound) recall in a drama.  Students identify similarities among art forms. Students become fire, fight fire, and practice fire prevention all through the safety of drama. This lesson introduces students to sensory (touch, taste, smell, sight, and sound) recall and personification (part of the third … Read more

The Three Sillies Lesson

The Three Sillies Lesson: Using Narration  Objective: students demonstrate narrative storytelling skills. Jack is on a quest to find three very silly people. This famous and quite funny folk tale delights students of all ages. The lesson introduces three different styles of narrator voice and how the choice of style affects the dramatic impact (part of … Read more

Lon Po Po Lesson

Lon Po Po Lesson

Lon Po Po Lesson: Conflict Objective: students identify conflict, problem and resolution in a story while problem solving. Lon Po Po by Ed Young is a Little Red Riding Hood story from another culture and is beloved by children who play this as a full class drama. The words Lon and Po Po mean wolf … Read more

Prop Story Lesson

prop story

Prop Story Lesson Objective: Students will learn how props support drama work. This lesson for fourth grade students focuses on using props in a drama. For materials, you will need some simple props (described in the lesson) as well as selected stories from Aesop’s fables. This lesson makes use of the Pass the Object activity as a warm up … Read more