Creative Dramatics Lessons for Elementary Grades by an Award Winning Drama Teacher
Hello!
You may not know me or be familiar with my work. I’m Deborah Baldwin (but my friends call me Deb.) I am a recently retired award-winning drama teacher of thirty-eight years. In that time, I directed over 250 plays and musicals with students and adults as well. I taught every grade level, but the bulk of my time was spent with secondary students.
Here is my resume if you’d like to see it:
If you’d like a free guide And lesson plan from me, click here LESSON PLAN
My Teaching Style
Drama is a hands-on class. To this end, I’m always on my feet, modeling for my students while teaching them a host of concepts. It is not unusual to hear my classroom in chortles of laughter because humor is an outstanding way to gain a student’s attention. I empower students at an early age. Although I am always mindful of my learning objectives, I think it’s vital for students to experiment within the confines of my instruction. I encourage students to be independent and creative thinkers. Many less confident or reluctant students benefit from my teaching methods as together we hit the challenges they encounter. I am creative, intense, driven and brave–these are qualities I nurture in all my students and generally receive outstanding results.
If you need some warm ups for your class, whether a core or drama class check out Theatre Games Guide
Strengthening Reading Comprehension Skills
When I was researching this blog post, I found a wonderful site, http://www.understood.org. They discussed the reasons for reading aloud (aka drama class!):
1. Decoding
Decoding is a vital step in the reading process. Kids use this skill to sound out words they’ve heard before but haven’t seen written out. The ability to do that is the foundation for other reading skills.
Decoding relies on an early language skill called phonemic awareness. (This skill is part of an even broader skill called phonological awareness.) Phonemic awareness lets kids hear individual sounds in words (known as phonemes). It also allows them to “play” with sounds at the word and syllable level.
2. Fluency
To read fluently, kids need to instantly recognize words, including ones they can’t sound out. Fluency speeds up the rate at which they can read and understand text. It’s also important when kids encounter irregular words, like of and the, which can’t be sounded out.
Sounding out or decoding every word can take a lot of effort. Word recognition is the ability to recognize whole words instantly by sight, without sounding them out.
3. Vocabulary
To understand what you’re reading, you need to understand most of the words in the text. Having a strong vocabulary is a key component of reading comprehension. Students can learn vocabulary through instruction. But they typically learn the meaning of words through everyday experience and also by reading.
What can help: The more words kids are exposed to, the richer their vocabulary becomes. You can help build your child’s vocabulary by having frequent conversations on a variety of topics. Try to include new words and ideas. Telling jokes and playing word games is a fun way to build this skill.
4. Sentence Construction and Cohesion
Understanding how sentences are built might seem like a writing skill. So might connecting ideas within and between sentences, which is called cohesion. But these skills are important for reading comprehension as well.
Knowing how ideas link up at the sentence level helps kids get meaning from passages and entire texts. It also leads to something called coherence, or the ability to connect ideas to other ideas in an overall piece of writing.
What can help: Explicit instruction can teach kids the basics of sentence construction. For example, teachers can work with students on connecting two or more thoughts, through both writing and reading.
5. Reasoning and Background Knowledge
Most readers relate what they’ve read to what they know. So it’s important for kids to have background or prior knowledge about the world when they read. They also need to be able to “read between the lines” and pull out meaning even when it’s not literally spelled out.
What can help: Your child can build knowledge through reading, conversations, movies and TV shows, and art. Life experience and hands-on activities also build knowledge.
6. Working Memory and Attention
These two skills are both part of a group of abilities known as executive function. They’re different but closely related.
When kids read, attention allows them to take in information from the text. Working memory allows them to hold on to that information and use it to gain meaning and build knowledge from what they’re reading.
What can help: There are many ways you can help improve your child’s working memory. Skill builders don’t have to feel like work, either. There are a number of games and everyday activities that can build working memory without kids even knowing it.
Maybe you are researching Back to School lessons. Or you are looking for drama units, lessons and plays for your elementary students. Or you want to save yourself time, especially since distance learning is taking its toll on our teachers.
I can help you.
Here is my opinion about expectations of our elementary students. My Pet Peeve
Here are a few of my lessons for elementary students:
- Tableau, Grades 3 and 4
- Chanting, Grades 3 to 5
- Costume Design with Goldilocks and the Three Bears
- Creative Movement
- Costume Design with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
- The Little Girl and the Winter Whirlwinds
- Costume Design with Alice in Wonderland Characters
Each lesson comes with a teacher’s letter, procedure, a warm-up, materials list, teacher’s script and assignments.
Recently, I created fifteen minute radio theater plays for grades 3 to 5. These are royalty free, too!
Recently, I created fifteen minute radio theater plays for grades 3 to 5. These are royalty free, too!
I hope you’ll check out my creative dramatics lessons. My thirty-eight years of teaching drama education serve me well in creating these lessons and/or adapting some which I all ready used in the classroom.
Have you taught creative dramatics with your students? I’d love to hear about it. Contact me at DhcBaldwin@gmail.com or DeborahBaldwin.net
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