Monday, September 12, 2011

DRAMA TIME!!!

Every Thursday from 12:55pm- 2:30pm I work with a group of kids from the school on board, aka The Academy, and teach them drama. That really means having a glorified play time- especially with the youngest ones, but I do really try to get them learning.

The first class I have is from 12:55- 1:40. This is my 2nd and 3rd grade class and my biggest, which has a whopping 7 kids. Yes- only 7. They range in personalities like crazy, which definetly cracks me up sometimes. I have a few who love the class but rarely actually pay attention, one who is my listener, and the others like to just be silly. At least there's room for that in a drama class. Once I get them focused and paying attention, we have a great time:) Last week I started them on script reading. I attempted to explain a cold read to them, but they were all really confused... we'll work more on that later. But they were all excited to have a script in hand and ready to go. (Ps- does anyone reading have good scripts for 7 kids of this age- or a script that I can adapt. The one we're working with is good for now, but I want all of the kids to have more than just 1 line- a few only have 1 line, and I wanna get them reading out more. )

My second class is my 1:45-2:30 which is my Kindergarten and 1st grade class. I have 1 kindergartener and one 1st grader. It's definetly a challenge getting only 2 kids to play a game, as most games are defintely for at least 3 kids. I can't just play Duck Duck Batman or anything like that... I gotta get really creative with these guys. I have learned that they LOVE to pretend. Most of the time they mimic eachother a bit, but I think over time they'll figure it out. We played a game where they were pretending to be little seeds of a tree that were growing up, and one was wayy into it, but kept peeking an eye open to the other, who wasn't as excited. But.. again- with time:) I think these kinds of games are ideal. We also played a game where I was a toy store owner and the kids were toys, and I had to leave to do things and when I came back, I find the store in different shape than when I left... they loved that one. Especially when the shop owner called the police and the police told them they werent toys but little boys... making me the silly one:) haha. (If you have any games for 2 k-1 kids.. let me know- I'll run out of ideas after a while.. )

It's been a great time for me- it's always fun, and I'm ALWAYS learning a bit more about teaching, how to effectively get the kids to listen, and what works, but also what doesn't work and how not to do things:) I'm really looking forward to seeing what kinds of things we come up with over the rest of the year. I'm also really excited for the Christmas show that happens every year on board that I've been asked to help with. Any ideas? Haha... I'm fishing for ideas on all fronts;)

<3 M

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