Drama Lessons for the Primary School Year

Calendar Based Learning Activities

John Doona

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136257964
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

A year of drama – ready to use schemes at your fingertips.

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• 25 topical schemes of work

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• 100+ drama lessons

'This book really will offer some new and exciting ideas for teachers to teach. Even teachers who enjoy their job often complain that they become stale after teaching the same things every year. They look for new ideas that will reignite their enthusiasm. I think this book could offer some sparks'

Jo Howells, English Advisor, Warwickshire Educational Development Service

Looking to engage, enthral and educate your pupils in timely and topical drama- based activities?

In need of dynamic and inventive cross-curricular exercises for single lessons, extended units or school assemblies?

From the September blues of change, through Great Fires, Guy Fawkes, Antarctic penguins, Rainbow Fish and Chinese Walls to Mandela's mighty day, this book offers a fascinating array of lives to be lived and journey's to be made.

Drama Lessons for the Primary School Year will enable teachers to develop their expertise and confidence in order to create active and imaginative schemes of drama for the classroom. It offers a programme of ready-to-run workshops linked to specific dates in the calendar and specific themes into which teachers can readily dip on a regular basis. The first section uncovers the author's own creative processes in generating drama experience and offers it to the reader in a set of simple, practical steps. The rest of the book is a wide-ranging compendium of schemes of work attached to specific calendar dates throughout the school year. These detailed drama lesson plans can be run as 'one-off' workshops or can be used by teachers as a basis for creating their own drama-led curriculum experiences. The book offers a practical structure to support these new creative planning tasks.

This indispensable resource is for all Primary teachers looking for inspiration in developing effective drama sessions, exploring kinaesthetic learning, and developing creative cross-curricular approaches to their teaching.

October

Scheme 1. World Space Week

Yuri and the aliens (KS1/2)

On this day: background

On 4 October 1957 the very first satellite was launched – Sputnik. This was the first human-made satellite and was intended to measure and test the Earth’s atmosphere. It was unmanned. It was launched by Russia and is said to be the start of ‘The Space Age’. World Space Week has been chosen to include this day.

Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space. You could use the drama to celebrate ‘Yuri Day’ on 12 April, a celebration in many countries of Yuri Gagarin’s significance.

Possible curriculum links: Science, PHSE, History, RE, Literacy

Possible questions:

• How big is the universe?

• Could there be other people, other species out there in space?

• Is space worth humans exploring? Why?

• What would a peaceful, just world look like? If humans are around for another million years will the world become more just, more peaceful?

You will need:

• Recordings of ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’, and ‘Mars’, from Holst’s Planet Suite or, perhaps, film music. The pieces should have contrasting rhythms.

• Images of Earth from space – particularly the first such picture and images from the Hubble telescope.

• Decorator’s masking tape and newspapers.

Drama session

Introduction

Ask the group to walk around the room, keeping distance between themselves and others. Tell them to listen to the music that they will hear and to move with the Holst music. Encourage strong, definite movement and shapes. Freeze. Discuss … does it make them think of anything? Space, perhaps?

Now ask pupils to lie on the floor as if they were in bed. Narrate the following:

It is night. The middle of the night. The house is quiet. If you listen carefully you can probably hear the breathing of all the other people in your house. You look over at the window. It seems bright outside. Is the sun coming up? No. You walk to the curtain and pull it open. The sky is bright above. The moon shining like a watery eye. You want to see more. You put on your dressing gown and creep down the stairs. Listening all the time to see if someone has heard you. You make it to the back door. It opens with a squeak You step outside into the garden. You look up to the huge bright sky, which has more stars than you have ever seen. It is cold. You can see your breath. What’s that noise? You can almost hear the stars humming, twinkling, singing. They seem to be pulling you upwards. Now stand. Would you like to go to the stars? Into space? Then stand and raise your hands above your head. You are a rocket. We are about to blast off. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blast off! You rattle, rattle, thrust forward … then Phhhhuuuu! You are out in space! What different things might you find in space? On each suggestion invite the whole group to become that thing with a contrasting movement; satellites, aliens, planets, space ships, comets, meteorites, stars, etc. Now freeze.

This extended piece of spontaneous physical improvisation engages the physical, intellectual and aesthetic selves. It is fun, energising and focused on the topic we will pursue. We move to a contrasting and relatively stationary section of work.

Wonder facts

Around the room, on walls, prepare the following long numbers as display items. You might do this by using long thin strips of decorator’s lining paper with the number written by hand. You could use a whiteboard, but for us, seeing the sheer length of such numbers displayed in ‘space’ is part of the wonder of the number facts.

Here are the numbers (all approximate, all subject to dispute and revision by the scientific community):

From Earth to the moon: 360 000 km (360 thousand km)

From Earth to the sun: 150 000 000 km (150 million km)

To our next nearest star, Alpha Centauri: 40 000 000 000 000 km (40 trillion km)

To the centre of our own galaxy, The Milky Way: 245 000 000 000 000 000 km (245 quadrillion km)

From one edge of the universe to the other*: 1 560 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 km (1.5 septillion km)

Discuss the numbers and how big distances in space and the universe are. How does it make you feel? It’s this huge outer space that we humans have begun to explore … we’ve not got very far yet; the furthest a human being has been is the moon. When you think about how huge the Milky Way … let alone the universe … is, this is perhaps like travelling one millimetre away!

Would you like to explore space? To go into space without leaving this room? OK. How are we going to get there? Build a rocket? Let’s play a game….

Build a rocket

Address the group as the Head of the Space Agency.

My fellow scientists and engineers. We come here today to complete the construction of the Empress Space Rocket. It has taken many thousands of hours and many billions of pounds to bring us where we are today. The world is waiting and launch-time fast approaches. Please be about your work of building and testing this rocket, which will carry our human species into space.

*No-one really knows this – it might not even have an edge; it might still be growing; there might not have been a big bang – That’s science for you! Great.

Out of role explain that everybody has a very specific job in the building of the rocket. Ask for suggestions as to what the jobs might be. Some might be technical, complex and some simple. Demonstrate a few jobs yourself. When you do so, make sure it is a precise mime you give and also introduce a vocalised noise for each action; a turn of a screw might require a squeak, a lift of a heavy part, a huff, a press of a button, a beep.

Having established the principle of a detailed mime and attendant sounds, continue into the activity:

Now, you are all the engineers and scientists on the rocket building team. You are highly skilled and highly careful. You know your work is important; someone’s life really does depend upon it. You work as a team … you rely upon each other and rely upon each other to do your job perfectly. The team operates like a machine – all the parts working together.

Here’s The Game of the Rocket Builders!

What is your job? Do you tighten, tweak, wrench, install, fill, clean, polish … etc. What do you do? What does it look like and what does it sound like? Here in the centre of the circle is the rocket laboratory. This is where we work. One person will enter and begin their work (Demonstrate). It will be careful, silent work … except for the work noise that accompanies it. The first person will carry on their work … concentrating, undistracted. A second person will join … they can start their own work action in another place in the lab, or join a previous one; either with a new sound and action (Demonstrate) or a repeat of the first. As you come forward, give a simple description of your job, e.g. ‘I polish the windows of the command module’ or ‘I pack the food parcels into the special fridges’. We carry on until the whole lab is operating and everybody is involved. OK? Questions? Let’s begin.

Now, slowly but surely you can begin to build a feeling of this busy, high-tech lab. You might heighten the sense of the sequence by adding some background music – perhaps the ‘Common Man’ used earlier or you might try the pensive Elbow track, ‘Lippy Kids’, of which the key line is ‘Build a rocket, boys!’ and reads as a plea for children to hang onto their capacity for imaginative play. Or you might choose silence and the sounds of work.

After the group are all assembled in the lab, think about spotlighting individuals or small groups and questioning them. Spotlighting simply involves asking the section of the group that you indicate – we always use a hand held high to indicate an actual stage light – to continue whilst the other sections all freeze.

In a final sequence, ask the engineers and scientists to finish their final work and their checks and to move back to the edge of the laboratory and look up at the rocket that is now in position on the launch-pad. We are almost ready for launch. When there is only one person left, ask them to freeze. Say,

My friend, Chief Scientific Engineer, you are the last to leave the rocket before launch. It is up to you to make your final checks; to check these good people’s work and confirm that we are ready for launch. Take your time. Look carefully at this rocket. Here you are now on the outside of the rocket. Stand back. Look up. The whole team are waiting for your approval – for your thumbs up! Take your time, sir/madam. Are we ready to initiate launch procedures?

Finally, the chief scientific engineer will (hopefully) give the thumbs up, at which you can initiate a ripple of genteel scientific applause.

Ask everyone to turn their backs to face out from the circle. Explain that in a moment, we are going to see the complete rocket for the first time; so far we have been working on our own small section and the main outside structure of the rocket has been hidden behind plastic sheets and scaffolding. It is about to be revealed to the world … and to you, the scientist engineers who built it. Think now about what you will see when you turn around and see the rocket. How big is it? What markings does it have? What will you have to say about it? Think. Think. Now turn. Tell me what you can see….

At this, the group complete their imagining of the rocket ship and we develop an extensive picture of it by individuals offering their own description in as much detail as possible. The offerings are accumulative and build a common picture. Then:

Ladies and Gentlemen, the countdown has begun. Please go to your places to prepare for launch…. Stop. This is a rocket for only one astronaut. Who shall it be? Who has been in training for years for this moment? Who has said goodbye to their families this morning knowing they are going further away from home – family, people, planet – than anybody in history? It is YOU? (One person) And YOU and YOU and YOU? (Indicating everyone)

The astronaut

Discussion

Do you know the name of the first person in human history to leave the Earth’s atmosphere? He was a Russian called Yuri Gagarin. He didn’t go far, but he was the first man in space. And he went alone! Maybe you’re him … or someone like him, but would you all like to be that astronaut preparing to blast off on this freshly-finished rocket? OK. Then grab a chair!

Explain that the astronaut will probably sit facing the direction that the rocket is going to move; so, facing up. Ask pupils to lay their chairs on the floor with the chair-back on the floor. They are all now going to lie in the chair with their knees hooked over the chair bottom – it is just the normal seating position but rotated 90 degrees. After placing the chair, ask the group to move a little away from their own chair. On your signal, they are to move forward and climb into their take-off position. They should strap themselves in and do their own final checks. All...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Author’s introduction: '… I do, I understand’
• An approach to planning for drama: Twelve techniques
• The schemes
• Afterword
• Further reading