Nursery Drama

[Guest]

Hi, I am currently in charge of rpoducing and developing a Drama syllabus for Nursery pupils and am having problems finding material, books and general ideas that might work. I am a secondary school teacher so its difficult for me to know what will work as well at that age. Can anyone help?

Thank you so much.

 

Jakki

[Guest]

Take a traditional story, i.e. 3 billy goats gruff add a few songs you can all sing together, make them up if you can't find any to fit using a traditional tune, we sing three billy goats want to cross the bridge to "What shall we do to a drunken sailor" use the most confident children as the main characters, have lots of understudies to jump in at the last moment have lots of singing flowers, trees and rabbits have some dancing rain clouds. Then have your video ready and earn your class £200 from "TV You've been framed"

[Helen]

Welcome to the site, Jakki.

We went through a similar learning curve at our setting last year, when I wanted to look into drama for pre-school children. I want to give my reply some more thought, so I won't post too much here, now. I'll have some books to recommend shortly, too.

To sum up, I think drama can be all of these things:

* role play

* making up stories with props and puppets

* linked with music and/or movement

* linked to familiar books, where the children take on the characters' roles, or use the characters from the book in a new adventure.

 

There is a huge difference between allowing the children to create their own drama, and providing a more formal, planned activity.

 

That's my short answer ( ) but I'll get back to you over the next day or two with some detailed stuff.

[JacquieL]

Do you mean nursery or all of the Foundation Stage? I use a lot of drama in my reception classroom but some conventions are not suitable for younger children, they cannot always distinguish between fact and fantasy, therefore using a character in role such as a wolf or witch would be very frightening for the younger children in nursery, but with careful preparation can work very well with the older reception children. Working through familiar stories using props and letting them make up their own play with them, is very effective.

I agree with everything in Helen's reply. Early years drama really builds on children's role-play but can be extended as Helen suggests. Small-world play, where they project their stories on to characters such as playmoble people etc would also qualify as the beginnings of drama activities.

Extending role-play, for example pretending to visit the seaside and creating a beach outside and enacting the trip, getting on the coach (if that is what they choose to go on) singing songs, playing on the beach, having a picnic (snack) and then going home to bed , is the sort of activity which could be planned for a whole group. This may last a half day session and then on other days they can replay their experiences for themselves. Lots of pretend, lots of language and lots of fun!

[bubblejack]

I start with a character. Might be a pre-school toy or characters from a story book. I start the story off by saying the ??? is going and then each child scribes to me I write down the key words accompanied by a picture. We then have our play. I keep all these in a book in the book corner. The children use these themselves. We also act out well known stories. They seem to love being the scary character

[Guest]

Have you seen the book The Three Singing Pigs? This has little "plays" on familiar themes, the 3 little pigs, the great big turnip. It uses new songd using familiar tunes, such as Knees up Mother Brown.

Our children have enjoyed these in the past and we have masks etc. for them to use.

Linda

[Verona]

I bought the book Three Singing Pigs recently and as you said Linda, it uses familiar tunes for the new songs. The children have acted out the story of the Three Little Pigs (don't you just love the song Trotting down the road, trotting down the road, etc..... once we sing that we are singing or humming it for the rest of the day!) The Enormous Turnip is

We have also 'rapped' The Little Red Hen story, the children loved that one. My deputy and the older children did a little play using The Hare and Tortoise, for the rest of the Pre-school, we all thoroughly enjoyed it. There are ideas for little plays, activities, music and games.

[Verona]

I've just read my last posting and as you can see I didn't check it before posting it. I missed out the bit about The Enormous Turnip - it is a fun song and the children love to join in with the actions. Must be time for bed!!!!!!!!zzzzzzz

Bye

[Helen]

Hi Jakki,

The books I've read recently which have some nice ideas are:

1) Music and Dramatics at Circle Time, C. Gnojewski

2) Dance and Drama, (Learning Through Play series), Scholastic Publications

3) Drama and traditional story for the early years, N.Toye & F. Prendiville (heavy going, so I'd get it from the library rather than buying it, but it does have some interesting content)

4) Supporting Drama & Imaginative Play in the Early Years, Lesley Hendy & Lucy Toon (my absolute favourite, and I'm now reading it for the third time!)

Hope this helps. Perhaps you'd feel able to post your final document as an article for members to access and comment on?