During the Spring Semester of 2013 I was a part of a class project in Theatre for Young Audiences II which included going to Mike Mountain Horse Elementary School to teach drama. During my time there I taught grade 4 & 5 Drama twice a week. Our goal was to teach the students enough to begin rehearsing a short play/skit for the whole school.
Teaching came in the form of 40 minute blocks in each class. We would arrive in the morning, teach one class, take a short recess break then go and teach our second class. The grade 4's were involved heavily in movement as communication. Our grade 5's were more based around the idea of characterization, movement as communication and stage presence. These were taught through activities in class such as; Move to the music, Body Leads, Character builds, and drafting a rough show.
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The grade 4 students developed tableaux's to describe a baseball game. They performed on stage with the song "Take me out to the Ballgame" and absolutely loved it. The performance was ensemble based and included 24 students.
The Grade 5 students developed a short interpretation of an amusement park. It was amazing to see students at this age bouncing ideas off of each other like they were. I would go back to teaching grade 5 drama any day. |