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Drama Posters – Suggested activities for years 1–8 local navigation

Drama Posters

Suggested activities for years 1–8

Extending children’s dramatic play

Set up a space in the classroom where children can play out informal dramas during developmental, theme, or literacy time. Provide familiar and new objects for the children to use, based, for example, around a theme or big book that you are currently working on.

If the theme is food, for example, you might:

  • first, set up the space as a café, encourage children to take on roles as cooks, wait staff, and customers.
  • next, introduce posters and simple texts for the children to read and display in the area; encourage students to make their own posters, menus, recipe lists, and price lists; and to draw or make symbolic objects to go in the space, for example, money.
  • When the space, roles, and action are established and belief is built, you might enter the space in role as an older member of the community who likes to come to the café to meet her friends.
  • After some time, introduce a problem for the children to consider. For example, tell the class that the people in the café are concerned because they haven’t seen their elderly friend for a few days. This will motivate the children to develop their story to find a satisfactory conclusion to this problem and will provide an opportunity to write in role and develop critical and creative thinking skills.

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Mapping

A good way to gather ideas and build belief in the imaginary world is to collectively map or draw an aspect of the imaginary world. After reading a text or talking about a topic, for example, Māui and the sun, ask the students to brainstorm ideas about the village where Māui and his brothers live. Use these ideas to draw a collective map.

The students can then set up the space in the classroom working from the map as a guide and using available furniture or large pieces of material to represent a river, a lake, or a pathway. When the space is set, they can step into this world and take on a role, showing what the villagers do on a regular day. To help the students develop their roles and their understanding of the dramatic space, you can enter the space in role, asking questions about the village, what happens in it, and who lives there.

Depending on your learning objectives in the drama, other mapping options might include drawing a map of how to get to somewhere (for example, around Old McDonald’s farm) or drawing the floor plan of a building in which the children will take on roles as workers (for example, spaces such as a museum or art gallery).

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