School Drama Medium Term Plan

SCHOOL DRAMA MEDIUM TERM PLAN

Year: R / Name of Unit: Changes by Petersfield Infant School (Steph Lee Harper) / Role Play Area
Foundation Stage Early Learning Goals: Creative Development. (There may be links with other areas of learning too such as Personal, Social and Emotional Development, Physical Development and Knowledge and Understanding of the World).
To explore different media and respond to a variety of sensory experiences. Engages in representational play.
To create simple representations of events, people and objects e.g. uses props to support role-play such as large boxes to represent an airport.
Tries to capture experiences using a variety of different media e.g. recreates a visit to the doctor in the role-play area.
Explores colour, texture, shape, form and space in two or three dimensions e.g. using masks and moving to music in the outside area. / Recognises and explores how sounds can be changed…matches movement to music.
Uses imagination in art and design, music, dance, imaginative and role-play and stories. Responds in a variety of ways to what s/he sees, hears, smells, touches and feels.
Expresses and communicates ideas, thoughts and feelings using a range of materials, suitable tools, imaginative role play, movement, designing and making and a variety of songs and musical instruments.
Expresses feelings and preferences in response to artwork, drama and music and makes some comparison and links between different pieces. Responds to own work and that of others when exploring and communicating ideas, feelings and preferences through art, music, dance and role-play and imaginative play. eg chooses different movements to represent the four seasons. Being able to fully immerse themselves in character.
Drama focused learning (from Drama in Schools 2) Level One:
Making – Take part in a wide range of pretend situations, stories and characters.
Performing – Take turns speaking their part and act out familiar stories which they share with friends.
Responding – Say why they adopted a particular movement, voice or facial expression when they talk about their drama
Other:
Name of Unit: Changes
Resources: / Key Vocabulary
Teaching Sequence:
Lesson 1:
I CAN TELL YOU HOW I’VE CHANGED
Resources: Drama bag, toys or pictures of babies toys. Toys that children in Year R play with now.
Children realise their own change of likes and dislikes through discussing toys that they played with as a baby and what they enjoy doing now.
Lesson 2:

I KNOW HOW TO HELP SOMEONE WHEN THEY ARE FEELING SAD

I CAN TELL YOU WHAT I CAN DO NOW THAT I COULDN’T DO WHEN I STARTED SCHOOL.
Introduction to “change”, exploring physical and emotional changes that we have experienced and seen others experience. Explore how our actions and actions of others change how we feel – using miming – teacher in role and freezing.
Lesson 3:

I CAN REMEMBER FEELINGS I HAVE HAD, AND WHY I FELT LIKE THAT

I CAN TELL YOU WHAT I CAN DO NOW THAT I COULDN’T DO WHEN I STARTED SCHOOL
Resources: puppet, drama bag
Children explore and relate to the feelings of their new class mate by reflecting on the emotions they felt on their first day of school
Lesson 4:
I KNOW THAT SOMETIMES WHEN PEOPLE ARE NOT VERY NICE TO ME IT IS BECAUSE THEY DON’T FEEL VERY GOOD INSIDE
*  Becoming aware of others and their needs.
*  Discuss and explore, through drama:
*  That when people are not nice to others it’s because they don’t feel very good inside.
*  How to help someone who is feeling sad.
*  The difference between accidental and on purpose
Lesson 5:
I CAN REMEMBER FEELINGS I HAVE HAD AND WHY I FELT LIKE THAT.
I CAN SOMETIMES TELL YOU HOW CHANGE MAKES ME FEEL.
Resources: photocopy of the smiley face cards (enclosed) and a long piece of string.
Children explore different degrees of happiness and sadness.
Resources: smiley/ sad face cards (photocopied from this planning) a bit of string. Large piece of material the children can all sit on.
Lesson 6:
I CAN TELL YOU WHAT I DID WITH MY CLASS TO MAKE THE PARK BETTER.
Resources: Postcard from a fairy telling the children about the litter in the park.
Through imaginative play children realise that their positive actions such as cleaning up a park make them feel proud and responsible.
WEEKLY PLANNING:
Lesson 1:
Drama techniques: Mantle of the expert
Resources: Drama bag, toys or pictures of babies toys. Toys that children in Year R play with now.
Up Down Freeze Game
The children all walk round the room in the same direction until the teacher calls Freeze‘, when they all stop absolutely still like statues. The object of the game is to keep as still as possible and to respond quickly. On Go‘
the class move round the room again until the teacher calls ‘Up‘ and everyone stops still and puts their hands in the air. And so the game continues. If the teacher calls Down‘ everyone drops to the ground; Then go on to opposites when the command is the opposite of the response require. Up means down, Freeze means go and so on. This demands great concentration.
Keep a straight face
AIMS Quiet concentration; absorption; pair involvement
Leader divides whole group into pairs. They are instructed to stand, facing one another, 60cm (2‘) apart. They should then be instructed to look down at that their own feet and adopt a serious face. (This is often difficult in itself!) On the word ‘Go!‘ from Leader, they look up into each other‘s eyes, maintaining the serious expression of their faces for as long as they are able. Both members of the pair must sit down when either one breaks concentration.

I CAN TELL YOU HOW I’VE CHANGED

Mantle of the expert:
Tell the children that you are a toy maker and have a problem. Not many children from the shop; are coming into your shop and buying the toys. Have some toys in the bag (or pictures) and choose children to take out one at a time and discuss it. The children will tell you that they are babies’ toys and Year R children won’t want to play with those toys. Discuss with the children what toys they enjoy now. How they can use different toys because their skills at manipulating objects is better.
Are there any special toys they have? Why are they special and how do they make you feel? Why do you not like the toys you used to like?
Can we make a brand new toy that children your age will love to play with? Get ideas from the children. Ask the children to go off and draw their new toy and bring it back to the toy maker to discuss.
Lesson 2:
*  drama techniques:
*  mime, freezing, teacher in role
*  resources:
*  hat or shawl
Warm up games
Pass the emotion a facial expression of anger, happiness etc is passed round the circle. then, walking round the room, if you hear "freeze" you must freeze with a different facial expression each time.
Mirroring mime and movement skills
Ask the children to sit facing a partner and to decide which one of them is A and which is B. Tell them that A is to begin slowly making a pattern in the air using only one arm. B must try to mirror the pattern exactly. When you call “Change‘, the action must continue uninterrupted, with B this time taking the lead.

I KNOW HOW TO HELP SOMEONE WHEN THEY ARE FEELING SAD

I CAN TELL YOU WHAT I CAN DO NOW THAT I COULDN’T DO WHEN I STARTED SCHOOL
CHANGE:
Discuss with children what change means - "something different. It can either be good or bad or just different to before."
How have they changed? Get children to act out the actions of being a baby, to the actions of a child at nursery, to going to school for the first time and their achievements during this year. Each step must be talked through by the teacher as the children mime it out (so they don't get carried away)
Discuss how, sometimes, our emotions change based on what has happened to us that day.
Teacher in role as Mummy Bear (from the three bears) It is morning. Tell children how you are excited as baby bear is in bed and you have just made him his favourite breakfast - porridge.
Teacher comes out of role:
As teacher, ask the children who they met. How did she feel? Why? Shall we meet her after baby bear has woken up and eaten his porridge?
Teacher back in role:
She/ he tells the children how she went for a little stroll in the woods just before breakfast with her family and when she came back in someone had been in their house, broken furniture and eaten the porridge. Explain how sad she feels because she had worked so hard and also how angry she feels towards that person.
As teacher: Ask them what has happened, How is Mummy bear feeling now? Why? How can we make her change from feeling angry and upset to happy again? (help her make more porridge, find the person who has done this and get them to apologise etc.)
Bring back Mummy bear and act out the scenario of making new porridge, adding in the ingredients as you go. (This changes the lady’s emotions.)
Freezing:
1: Pretend to be Mummy bear who you met just finishing making the porridge. Show the happiness on your face.
2: Pretend to be Mummy bear coming in to see your furniture broken and porridge eaten. Show the sadness and anger on your face.
Lesson 3:
Drama techniques:
Puppetry
Resources: puppet, drama bag
Circle game:
The teacher re-caps that we are discussing how our bodies change and how we feel changes.
The teacher says the sentence.. “Now I can…” and finishes it off with something that some/most children can accomplish:
Do up my coat, write my name, tie my shoes, get dressed quickly, come to school on my scooter. Etc.

I CAN REMEMBER FEELINGS I HAVE HAD, AND WHY I FELT LIKE THAT

I CAN TELL YOU WHAT I CAN DO NOW THAT I COULDN’T DO WHEN I STARTED SCHOOL
Do you remember your first day at school? How did you feel when you met your teacher? Did you have any friends in your class from nursery? How did that make you feel? What made you feel happy about coming to school? What makes you sometimes feel sad or angry when you are at school?
Drama bag:
Someone is hiding in the drama bag. They don’t want to come out as they are scared because it’s their first day at school and he doesn’t know anyone. What can we do to make them feel happy inside?
Open the drama bag up and introduce Felix (puppet) He whispers to the teacher questions and how he feels. e.g. he doesn’t know anyone’s name, where is he? What class is he in? Who can he play with at play time?
The teacher relays this to the children and the children respond.
Is this helping Felix feel more relaxed (yes)
Lesson 4:

Drama techniques: miming, superhelpers

Warm- up:
What do we like about X?
Children sit in a circle. A child (X‘) volunteers to leave the room and the teacher asks the class to help them make a list of the things that we like about X. We can limit this to the three best things about X. When the child comes back into the room they can try to guess who said what about them or simply bask in the praise!
Pass the Tambourine
Ask a child to sit in the centre of the circle with his eyes closed while the rest of the class sit in the circle with their hands behind their backs. They then pass a tambourine around the circle, behind their backs, as quietly as possible. When you call “Stop!” the child in the centre must open his eyes and point to the child he thinks is holding the tambourine at that moment.
Very young children tend to signal with their face and their body language when they are hiding the tambourine.
By asking the child in the centre “How did you know who it was?‘ you can draw attention to this and encourage the children to disguise their body language an important acting lesson!
I KNOW THAT SOMETIMES WHEN PEOPLE ARE NOT VERY NICE TO ME IT IS BECAUSE THEY DON’T FEEL VERY GOOD INSIDE
Mime:
Tell the children that we are making some very big pretend towers with lots of pretend building blocks. The teacher joins in by also making a building. As the children make their towers through mime the teacher asks them about it e.g. colour, windows etc. But then a very big boy comes in and kicks your tower down for fun…
How do you feel?
Do this on a few more examples e.g. playing in the role play area and you are using the phone and a girl snatches it from you, you bring one of your favourite teddies to school and put it in the toy box. But when you go to get it at play it is gone!
Discuss times that the children have felt angry or sad at school. Freeze with that angry or sad face.
Use the story on page 13 of the “changes” booklet to explore controlling your feelings and the difference between “accident” and “on purpose”
Super helpers:
The children sit in a circle and the teacher becomes the role of a girl who has just met a boy in her class who is very upset and angry because someone had stamped on his lego model. She explains to the super helpers that she asked him to play and he shouted at her and she doesn’t know why. She didn’t do it.
Why did he shout at her?
Should she talk to him or be nasty back?
How can she help him? (build the model again with him)
Miming: Children get into groups and help each other build the model. The teacher asks questions about the models as the children show it to others
With guidance from the teacher the children should be able to discuss how she can help him and that his anger is not because of her.
Lesson 5:
Drama techniques:
Role play
Resources: photocopy of the smiley face cards and a piece of long string.
Warm up games:
Sculpt your Partner good when starting to teach about still images, body language and facial expressions