Dramatizing Stories by Mrs. Tas

Kindergartners LOVE to act out stories we have read.  This past week we read and acted out The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything. In this particular story, a little old lady goes for a walk and runs into different articles of clothes and a scary pumpkin head that keep following her.  They follow her home to try and scare her, but she isn't afraid of anything, so she tells the articles of clothes and scary pumpkin head to make themselves into a scarecrow in her garden.  This story allowed everyone to take part in the story for the first few days as we all enjoyed making the different sounds each article of clothing makes, and repeating the little old lady's phrases.  We then made a puppet of the little old lady and the objects she meets so each student could retell the story individually.  We were then ready to start acting out the story.  We start by counting how many characters are in the story.  Then we figure out if there are any speaking parts and who has the speaking parts.  Finally we get to pick which student will be which character and act it out.  Everyone has a role to play - some are actors and others are audience members.  The audience gets the play started by saying, "Lights, Camera, Action!"  The actors are "back stage" until it is their part of the story and each actor then comes "on stage" and performs their part.  At the end, the audience applauds and the actors take a bow.  The following day we get to perform it again with different actors.  The students enjoy putting on the plays and getting to participate in the different aspects of theater.