Puppets allow children to tell and retell a story and while doing it allowing them to essentially 'play' with pieces of the story. Here are pictures of the kids in 3rd grade telling the myth of Persephone. The main story remained unchanged, yet I taught the kids ways to get creative in their retelling by adding humor, and changing some basic aspects of the way the story was originally presented.
Storytelling, drama and acting allow children to experience the emotions. In retelling the story in their own way, their own words children learn about composition and how each aspect of a story is a 'moving' part that could be manipulated at the creator's will. Doing more storytelling, drama and acting allow kids to improve their own storytelling abilities for they see the huge part emotions and gestures play in the telling of the story.
Children who are normally shy amongst their peers suddenly come alive. In their mind, the puppet is speaking; not themselves. Acting and playing another person's role unleashes us from the bounds we normally place on ourselves when shy.
In order to create a play, one must first envision it in the mind. Here Zeus and Hermes float in a 'cloud' above 'frozen' Earth.
Here the characters are in the 'Underworld'
One of the 3rd grade classes is on their way to writing a modernized version of this story to tell their younger peers. We will begin this week. Keep checking for updates. I must thank fellow blogger and now far away friend, Sally Haughey from Fairy Dust Teaching for making me believe in the power of stories and narrative for teaching. Every parent of a young child should check out this blog......Amazing work!
1 comment:
Hey, I am checking this blog using the phone and this appears to be kind of odd. Thought you'd wish to know. This is a great write-up nevertheless, did not mess that up.
- David
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