It has been a really busy month with report cards and getting ready for the Christmas play as well as preparing for a two week long visit to the states. I am at a new school this year, which I really love and silly me, I signed up to be the director of the Christmas play and handle all the props and sets! It has been a really amazing albeit a tiring experience so far. We are T-7 days until our performance. Luckily there have been a bunch of supportive teachers who have come to help supervise prop production after school, and there are 23 middle school and high school volunteers who have helped out with various props and set pieces.
The more I work on productions like this the more important I think that they are for the kids and the adults to experience. I have been lucky enough to have worked in schools that value the arts and drama. The school that I student taught at was an arts focused elementary school where the 5th graders wrote and performed a play as a capstone project. At my previous school we had each grade create a scene of a play based upon what the were learning and tied them all together.
This year I am very excited to say that the kids researched Christmas celebrations from around the world and wrote a scene to teach the rest of the school and the parents about what they learned. Our performance will include students from Montessori through 5th grade. A group of fifth graders will connect the various performances through vignettes where they discuss the upcoming Christmas holiday and how they celebrate it in their home countries. Having kids involved in the research, writing, technology, and staging process makes them much more invested in the production and performance of the play. They also have more fun and remember their parts better.
Up front having the kids so involved can seem daunting to teachers new to this idea, but with the little ones you can do joint research, read together, discuss ideas, and type what they say as they say it. A projector is great for this kind of project so that the kids can see their ideas appear and discuss what happens next. For me the most important part of this process is that the kids have ownership over the production, and get to experience public speaking in a fun way. Drama is a great way for kids to express themselves inside and outside of the classroom, if only we give them the freedom to try it.
Looking forward to seeing how things pull together!
What do you think about elementary school productions? Should they be based on memorization and classic scripts, classic scripts adapted to meet the kids, or all original?
Do you see them as an interruption to the curriculum or an important part of the curriculum?
I'd love to hear your thoughts. Please leave them in the comments below.
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