Early years

Dramatic play
In dramatic play children pretend to be someone else or pretend to be
themselves in imagined situations.
This kind of activity usually happens in a specific area (home corner, unit corner)
Drama
Refers to process oriented drama with children – not presentation, but
exploration of ideas and situations through drama. Drama is usually teacher-
guided dramatic play.
Drama and early years
The use of drama to create learning experiences, ranging from spontaneous
drama initiated by a child’s curiosity to drama work that is planned and guided by
a teacher with specific educational objectives in mind.

Childhood development
Social
Social skills are exercised in dramatic activities. Interaction, negotiation and
cooperation are some components of the process.

Emotional
Drama facilitates emotional development by creating opportunities for children to
express and explore their feelings. Specially in symbolic world of make believe
where children express thoughts and concerns that would go undiscovered.

Physical
Drama and creative movement activities can eb structured to develop and
practice gross and fine motors skills. Fine motors skills are exercised when
children manipulate props, use finger puppers and mime various tasks. When
children enact the wind, caterpillars and various animals they are exercising
gross motor skills.

Cognitive
Cognition evolves from the physical exploration and understanding of a concept
to its mental representation and finally its verbal expression.

Creative
Through creative problem solving, creative movement or simply improvisation,
drama engages children’s imagination and stretches their creative thinking.
“Where does snow come from?” asks a three and a half year old child after a
drama lesson exploring winter. “Where do you think snow comes from?” replies
her teacher. After a thoughtful pause, the child responds, “I think it’s leftover
clouds that God crumbles up and throws down for people to play with”.

Drama and the curriculum / Unit of Inquiry

Drama can also be used as a medium for learning and inquiry in the U.I Drama
can deepen the children’s understanding of a concept but also to discover and
define their own relationship to it.
Literacy
Is the subject with most obvious connection to drama. They comprise the same
skills: speking, listening, reading and writing.
In the early years children learn language by practice and drama can create a
strong stimulus for the use and practice of language in a natural and
spontaneous way. Playing a variety of roles provides opportunity for children to
experiment with various levels and uses of language.
Units of Inquiry - Social Studies and Science
Many aspects of social studies and science provide excellent content for drama
work (social awareness, living things, environment, awareness of the variety of
roles in a society, cultural awareness, people’s behaviour on the environment). In
drama children are asked not only to play with the ideas proposed by the teacher
but also to feel what is happening and to understand what it means. Through
drama children are able to see an issue from various perspectives.

Maths
Teachers can create activities in drama that requires children to use math skills
such as counting, measurement, problem solving, the use of size and space.

Planning drama
1- Determining your objectives
Unit objectives
Developmental objectives
Drama specific objectives / skills – physical and verbal creative expression,
social and self-awareness development, language use and development of
imagination (Gardner)

Guide to structure a drama lesson

Creating a scenario and determining characters
a- Story dramatization
 Ready made plot
 The sequence of events is established
 Children can change roles or switch back and forth between two important
characters.
 Teacher needs to think if it is relevant to dramatize the entire sequence of the
story. It is possible to dramatize a small segment. This works when the teacher
wants to emphasize a particular point.
b- Theme-based drama
When drama is used to explore a theme
The objectives will help the teacher to develop a dramatic scenario
An example of theme based drama approach for the objective ‘to broaden the
children’s curiosity and awareness of the sun, moon and stars’ and to ‘become
aware of distance’ would be children in role of space pioneers who travel by
rocket to the moon. The scenario is a journey into outerspace, including
preparation, travel, a visit to the moon, returning home and celebration (some
children as reporters), engaging the space pioneers in recall.

Move drama backwards in time (page 21 dramatic difference)

There are two types of play in Theme based drama:

Socio dramatic play
The child engages in communal activities: cooking, looking after baby, making
tea, going to bed, mummies and daddies, hospitals, shopping, schools.

Thematic-fantasy play
This type of play draws children into the world of the imagination and creativity.
They are making stories that have not been told before. Child uses toys and
objects to act out stories and engages in complex story-making often using
props, costumes and puppets.

Personal engagement
Dramatic playing: being oneself in a make believe situation (most familiar in the
early years)
Mantle of the expert: being oneself, but looking at the situation through special
eyes (when they play doctors, nurses, firefighting. Teachers are supposed to
create mantles of expertise situations for children t engage with)
Role Playing: being in role representing an attitude or a point of view
Characterisation representing an individual lifestyle, which is somewhat different
from the child’s own
Acting: selecting symbols, movements, gestures and voices to represent a
particular individual to others.

Read extract page 29, 30, 31 in groups.

Role Play areas (page 100…) Supporting drama

Establishing an appropriate introduction

The introduction has three main purposes:
 To establish the beginning of drama time, helping children transition from their
previous work.
You can start drama by reviewing the last lesson, or by reminding them what
drama time means (we use our imaginations, we pretend to be someone else, or
to be in another place), or with a simple routine (dusting their heads with an
imagination duster, sprinkling some magic sparkles, children miming putting on
their drama shoes

 To introduce the characters and setting in the imaginary world of the drama
You can introduce or create a ritual that will help children enter the imaginary
world of the drama. This world will consist of new characters and setting.
Children can define some qualities and characteristics of some characters,
physicalize the environment, building an environment by listening to the sea
inside a shell, choosing mask, costume pieces and props to explore animal and
people characteristics.

 To introduce and reinforce new vocabulary and concepts.

If there was no pretext to the drama work, then it may be necessary to introduce
new vocabulary and concepts essential to understanding the drama. You can
introduce these by doing some creative movement with the children, practicing a
technique to be used (mirroring for example), creating a specific environment in
the classroom.

Establishing an appropriate closing

Closure is a vital element of the drama session. It helps children leave the
imaginary world of drama and provides an opportunity to reflect on what has just
happened and if necessary, to process it.
The closing should be soothing and calming. Come strategies include: making
the children imagine that their body is being transformed from the body of the
character back to their body; clearing away props that made the environment;
verbalizing their personal feelings, art activity to help children recall the story or
activity.

The opening and closing of the drama separates the fantasy of the drama from
the reality of the classroom.

Using different approaches

To sustain interest and involvement, it is best to change the approach during the
lesson.
1. Introducing new types of dramatic activity:
 Creative movement
Creative movement can be used to explore emotion, animal movement, and
the environment, such as growing plants, rain, wind, ocean waves, falling
leaves
 puppetry and hand play
in the early stage of dramatic play, children begin to use props, toys and dolls
as symbols for their thoughts, feelings, and needs. It facilitates
comprehension and development of language. It is an excellent tool to
maintain focus and enthusiasm. Examples: simple prop puppets becoming
wasps, simple glove puppets like black gloves for spiders and surgical gloves
as bats, use of hands and arms to create giraffes, other animals.
 miming the action
Miming the action encourages use of imagination and spontaneity. Children
can mime seated or standing up. When this approach is used props and
scenery are not necessary
 improvisation
Improvisation is the primary mode of dramatic activity with young children.
Improvisation is used across the continuum of dramatic activity to develop
dialogue and action as well as problem solving. It is important that is some cases
teachers verbally guide children through the improvisation, using questions to
draw out ideas.

2. Changing the way children are grouped

Whole group. Children are working together as one large group, all working
simultaneously (villagers working together to escape from a monster, group of
children in a treasure hunt).
Individual work. Children are each acting individually, as if they were the one and
only character from the story, usually the protagonist of the story.
Working in pairs. Placing children in pairs (usually two characters talking or
working together). This approach encourages language development and
provides opportunity for dialogue. The noise level can be quite high, but its worth
the trouble, as this is an excellent opportunity for practicing communication skills
and children usually stay on task. Teacher and assistant should travel among the
the pairs, facilitating the conversation of those getting stuck, confused, or way of
track.
Small groups (three to five children). This approach works well for creative work
and cooperative problem solving. The class can be divided into small groups in
situations when a character travels around to meet or discuss a problem with
other individual characters. This is the most challenging drama grouping for very
young children (too difficult for early three years old) and usually requires more
than one adult to facilitate the work. Other examples using small groups would be
establishing different “work” areas (hospital, restaurant), practicing decision
making and working cooperatively, as when groups of three or four children set
up shops or houses.

Intensifying or decreasing the level of participation

It is very important to vary the level of activity every few minutes. You might have
the children:
Move freely around the room
Move within the circle
Move in place (standing or seating)
Lying down
(advice for new teachers to drama: they should try and keep as much of the
movement as possible in the circle, preferably seated. Another approach is to
use mime during the action of the story and using props or puppets to present
their action on a miniature scale (using fingers to represent caterpillars to then
start using their bodies crawling freely about the room, or butterflies using their
hands by creating wings, then going into the use of the body to represent the
butterfly.)
Using a different space
Ideally, children should be up on their feet, “living through” the drama at key
points within the session. Though difficult to maintain to any length of time, the
teacher can alternate this with calming activity and then stopping to regroup.
Teacher should vary in level of activity and the use of space in the classroom.

Switching or changing roles

Roles for children
Usually during one drama lesson children engage in more than one role.
Sometimes they are moving back and forth between roles, or in and out or roles
every few minutes. Often all children are playing the same role simultaneously.
It is best to allow all of the children to become the protagonist in the story. Some
scenarios involve an important interaction between two primary characters.
Teachers should allow time for children to switch between roles and experience
both perspectives.
Exceptions would be when they play specific roles as members of a group
(villagers, astronauts. In this case they experience being part of a community and
discovering the value of working together to solve a problem.

Roles for teachers

The teacher should try and vary between playing a character, directing the action
or coaching from sidelines. Young children respond very well when the teacher
becomes involved in the drama as another character. The teacher’s involvement
also serves as a role model for the children, modeling her commitment to the
drama. It also engages children in dialogue.
Acting skills are not necessary as young children need very little convincing to
believe the character is genuine. A simple prop (hat, scarf, apron) or changing
the voice or stature is enough to convince and engage children. The teacher
must make it clear to the children that she is only pretending to be the character
and can return as the teacher by removing the prop.

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