4th Grade Drama Introduction

After introducing myself to the students, I put my crown on and spoke in a silly accent so they could clearly hear the difference between Miss Greenwood and Queen Mary (I had a student choose my name). Although I felt kind of silly and some of the students looked at me like I was crazy, I could tell that they were actually enjoying it and were curious as to what other things we were going to do.

I was thrilled to see that most of the students found something that they were really interested in doing among the four jobs! There were a couple of students that wanted to do two jobs so much so that they had a difficult time choosing one to commit to! There was one student that was so passionate about creating a potion that his imagination was set on fire! I loved to see him be a leader to his group as those around him asked him questions or made suggestions as he drew potions almost faster than he was able to on his paper. Another student pulled out previous assignment materials from other subjects to get ideas for ingredients. The physicians were fast at work and created multiple intricate and creative potions, drawing ingredients such as "sunshine juice," "frog eyes," and a variety of colors, textures, and patterns.

The knights roared with laughter as they made a list--almost two whole columns down one sheet of paper--of inventive and powerful weapons to fight against the dragon with! The magicians thought of multiple imaginative spells to teach the class! The commoners had an extremely well thought-out plan of how to escape the dragon and thought WAY ahead in that they said that they heard that the dragon's weakness is water, so they made a plan to pull a string and release a huge bucket of water on the dragon to weaken it!

I'm glad that the students were so excited about what they were doing, but unfortunately it was rather noisy when each group was presenting their plan to the class. I suppose we will have to work on audience skills in a future lesson.

When the groups separated into teams to face the dragon, it was definitely less organized than I had imagined, but I could tell that the students were still using their imaginations to create the world around them and were leading each other based on their role, which was the point after all. Because of time, step 5 pretty much became everyone doing the commoner's escape plan together, and then gathering together and pulling hard on the string that the commoners had imagined to release the water on the dragon. With that, the dragon died and the princess (Mrs. Bruce, who had been crying "Help! Help!" throughout the lesson) was released. After that I asked the students to share what their favorite things were that we had experienced that day, and was pleased to hear a variety of answers.

I hope the students had as much fun playing as I had watching them! I was so relieved to hear some of the students saying "Don't go!" and "I can't wait 'til you come again!" One student even gave me a blue sticky note on which she had drawn the dragon.

This is going to be a great semester! I love 4th grade!!

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LESSON 1: INTRO TO DRAMA

Casey Greenwood

BYU Arts Bridge

4th Grade

STANDARDS:

●     Standard 4.T.CR.1:

Develop imagination to create artistic ideas and work.

●     Standard 4.T.CR.4:

Define roles, identify responsibilities, and participate in group decision making.

OBJECTIVE: Students will develop imagination and will participate in group decision making by imagining that they are in a kingdom and by developing a plan to defeat the dragon.

Step 1: Hook.

Invite the students to sit on the floor in front of you. Tell them that in drama, we use our imagination and invite them to close their eyes and imagine that we are in a faraway kingdom from a long time ago. Tell them that you have brought a special guest with you and put on a crown while their eyes are closed. When they open their eyes, you are no longer the teacher but the queen of the faraway kingdom! Explain to the students that the “kingdom” has come under attack by a “dragon” and I will need their help to get rid of it! (To include the classroom teacher you can say that the prince/princess has been eaten by the dragon and needs to be saved!) Explain that you will need everyone to choose how they will contribute to the cause by becoming one of the following:

●     Magician: Will make a list of spells to protect the kingdom! (No “killing” spells.)

●     Knight: Will make a list of weapons to attack the dragon with! (No guns, tanks, bombs, etc. They should use their imagination when creating a list of weapons.)

●     Physician: Will make a recipe for a potion that will heal us immediately if we are hurt by the dragon!

●     Commoner: Will draw a map/write out a plan to escape the dragon!

Call the students up one by one to get to know their names and “dub” them as one of the four categories of their choosing. Once they have been “dubbed,” have them sit at a table in a group according to their title.

Step 2: Group work.

Have the students make a plan together according to their title and draw or write it on a sheet of paper.

●     Magician: They will make up a list of spells and write how to cast them. They may draw pictures of what the spells would look like!

●     Knight: They will make a list of weapons to use to attack the dragon. It can be as creative as they want--for example, throwing flying squirrels, etc.

●     Physician: They will make a recipe for a potion using any ingredients they want and steps to make the potion. They may draw pictures of what the potion would look like.

●     Commoner: They will draw a map or write steps of how we can escape the kingdom if it is overcome by the dragon! Some ideas: secret tunnels, play music that makes the dragon sleep, have everyone dress up like a dragon so the dragon is confused, etc.

Have one member of each group present his/her group’s plan to the class.

Step 3: Imagine!

Invite the students to stand up. Separate them into teams so that there is at least one of each of the four jobs in the team. Tell the students that you “hear” the dragon coming and ask them what they “hear.” What does the dragon sound like? Answers may include growling, heavy breathing, footsteps, roaring, etc. Next, tell them you “see” the dragon and ask them what they “see.” What does the dragon look like? Invite them to show with their bodies what the dragon looks like or sounds like.

Step 4: Assessment

The dragon is here! Instruct the students to help each other by putting the plans into action! Have the magicians lead the group for the first step, the knights for the second, etc.

1. Have the magicians teach their group the spell and have them “cast” it together in their team.
2. Have the knights lead the way for the plan of “attack” and pantomime attacking the dragon!

Oh no!! The spell of protection failed!! Everyone got hurt by the dragon!!

3. Have the physicians give everyone in their team a “potion” and have everyone “drink” it and be healed!
4. Have the commoners lead their team in the escape plan!

Once everyone has “escaped the dragon,” invite them to sit back on the carpet in front of you.

Step 5: Reevaluate

Invite the students to reflect on what just happened. Invite them to share what they felt and experienced. Share that maybe we should have taken more time to evaluate the situation and look for an opportunity before making a plan to get rid of the dragon. Tell the students that the dragon has a weakness and in their teams, have them decide what the weakness is and how to rid the kingdom of the dragon. Have one member from each group share what their group thinks the dragon’s weakness is and how their group would get rid of the dragon.

Step 6: Conclusion

Point out some great things that you saw the students doing throughout the lesson. Tell the students that what we just did together is called drama or theatre, and that you will be coming back every week to play more drama games with the students. Thank them for their participation!

Fall 2017 Introduction

Hello and welcome to my Arts Bridge blog!

My name is Casey Greenwood. I am 21 years young and am currently a Theatre Education major at Brigham Young University! I am obsessed with Disney and am currently the Secretary/Social Media Representative for BYU's Disney Club. I did the Disney College Program in Florida twice, where I had the INCREDIBLE opportunity of working at the Walt Disney World Resort as both a Character Attendant and Performer! My voice is my most prized possession, and there is nothing in the world that makes me happier than singing. I also love to play the violin and began playing when I was 11. I recently returned home from serving as a Young Performing Missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois, and got to share my testimony of and passion for the gospel through singing, dancing, acting, and fiddling all summer long! I plan to serve an 18-month proselyting mission for the church and will hopefully be leaving next semester!

I am fascinated with the world and its people. I LOVE to learn about cultures and study foreign languages. My obsession for all things Japan started when I was ten years old when my family hosted our first Japanese exchange student. We continued to host Japanese exchange students almost every year until I was almost 17 years old. I have been studying Japanese and Korean at BYU and hope to learn more languages and make more friends from around the world in the future! I am passionate about connecting with people and believe that theatre is one of the best ways to do just that. I wish for everyone to have the opportunity to develop confidence, quick-thinking abilities and social skills, and learn about themselves and others the way that theatre has helped me do all of those things and more!!

One of my favorite subjects in elementary school was SCIENCE (before I wanted to be an actress, I wanted to be a marine biologist!), and I am THRILLED to have the opportunity to integrate drama and science in our first and second units as I teach Mrs. Bruce's 4th grade class this semester! In our third unit, we will be integrating Social Studies!

I can't wait to see what adventures this semester will have in store, and I look forward to the growth that I will experience as I teach!

Kindergarten Lesson 6: Y

This lesson was difficult for me on multiple levels. First of all, what even starts with Y that is useful in every day life????? Second of all, with the morning class I kind of didn't realize how quickly the time went by and unfortunately left almost no time for the step 4 activity, which was kind of the point of the lesson.

The students did love imagining the perfect ice cream sundae though.

In the morning class, the machine consisted of two lines of students with their hands touching at the top, creating a "tunnel." I selected a couple of students to choose a yucky food and walk through the tunnel as the students said "yuck, yuck, yuck..." repeatedly until the student came out of the machine with his/her ice cream. They would explain the ice cream to the class and then the students would say "yum, yum, yum!"

Okay, I know what you're thinking. "That's not drama." I know, and it was awful. My mentor had even warned me about it in an email. I totally failed my last lesson with my A.M. kindergarteners because I tried to teach everything in 15 minutes instead of adapting and keeping the most important things the most important. So I went to a completely new gear for the P.M. class.

With the P.M. class, we spent a lot more time making fake "yucky foods" and eating them together.  I said "Aw man! Well now we have all these yucky foods. Any ideas how we can make them yummy?" The kids suggested that we try to put different "toppings" on them to see if it would make them better, but the majority of the class still didn't like them. was a brilliant transition when one of the students said "I know what we can do! We can build a machine that will make the yucky foods into yummy foods!" With that, we colored our ice cream, and one student even drew what the machine could look like! I was in awe at the engagement and student-driven learning that was happening in the classroom!

However, in our efforts to bring the machine to life, things did get a little chaotic when the students tried to stuff the machine with themselves. You could say that our machine clogged up and kind of exploded, and that's how the lesson ended unfortunately.

I'm definitely still getting the hang of this "classroom management" thing.

I can't believe my time in kindergarten is over!! I'm going to miss our adventures so much... I feel that I have grown so much as a teacher this semester! With many failed attempts, unfortunately... But oh well. You gotta make so many mistakes before you make improvements, right?

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Casey Greenwood

BYU Arts Bridge

Kindergarten

Lesson: Y

Strand: Create, Perform

Standards:

• CR.1: Develop imagination to create artistic ideas and work.
• P.6: Use imagination to support artistic choices.
• P.9: Share dramatic play and guided drama experiences within the classroom or with invited guests.

Objective: Students will recognize the letter y sound and will be able to use their imagination to bring a situation to life by pretending to be inventors that use a machine to turn yucky food into yummy frozen yogurt.

Materials needed: Whiteboard and marker, ice cream sundae black and white pictures (1 per student), crayons/markers

Step 1: Have the students tell their carpet buddies some foods that they think are “yucky.” Next, have them talk about what ice cream/frozen yogurt flavors that they think are “yummy.” Ask the class for suggestions of ice cream/frozen yogurt toppings that make any ice cream/frozen yogurt even yummier. Write a few examples on the whiteboard.

Step 2: Have the students, at their tables, color the ultimate frozen yogurt sundae with all their favorite toppings.

Step 3: Invite the students to gather at the carpet. As a class, create a “yummy machine” that will turn any yucky food to yummy frozen yogurt. Talk about what the machine looks like, how big it is, suggest that we should paint it a color that has a y sound (yellow), etc. The class will create the machine with their bodies, leaving a pathway for the “foods” to go through.

Step 4: Have the students, one by one, start at the opening of the machine and tell the class a “yucky” food. It is okay if it is the same as someone else’s yucky food. The student will then take a “plate full” of the yucky food, walk through the machine, and when they come out, they will show the class their yummy frozen yogurt sundae that the yucky food turned into!

Lesson 5: C

What I ended up teaching was actually really different from the lesson plan. I think I have learned a lot about classroom management with kindergarteners, and while I am definitely not perfect and often rely on my teacher partner for help, I can tell how much I have learned by how much I adapt while in the classroom, or between the morning and afternoon classes.

For this lesson, I had an idea that I thought might be too complicated, so I avoided writing it in the lesson plan. However, I decided to try this idea with the afternoon class and it ended up working MUCH better.

After discussing with my teacher partner and my mentor(s), I realized that collaboration in kindergarten doesn't have to be working with a group to make a group decision (because more opinions means more likelihood for arguments and chaos), but it could even be thinking about something and telling a partner that thing. So I tried to include a lot more two-person collaboration and less teamwork in this lesson.

Due to lack of time, Instead of reading the story, I told it from memory and showed pictures that were in a Gingerbread Man book that my teacher partner had in her classroom. Instead of clapping, I had the students say the "can't catch me" lines with me. I tried to get the morning class to spread out for step 2, but they kind of ended up being in a somewhat-spread clump on the carpet that we had read the story on.

I think I often get overwhelmed when giving instructions and think that I am not doing well enough, which often makes me second guess what I am saying, which then confuses the students because I explain the same thing three different ways or so. So that's definitely something I need to work on.

I did make sure to include an example and had a student act out with me an example of how the Gingerbread Man could get away, but I made the mistake of giving all the directions before that instead of giving them as we would go, or giving some before the example and some after. Because of that, I think the morning class was a little intimidated and didn't really know what to do.

But thus said, some of the kids were really excited to show what they had done! One partnership showed the Gingerbread Man getting ready to ride on a Crocodile across the river. However, I also found that many children raised their hand to volunteer not actually having anything prepared. I tried to walk these students through it like in the example and that seemed to work fairly well.

The afternoon class went much better, granted that I also figured out a better way to give the instructions for the step 2 activity. As aforementioned, I tried my original idea with the afternoon class and ended up liking it much better. Instead of having one child be the Gingerbread Man and one child be the c sound means of escape (which could get complicated, especially in "car" for example), I had one student be the Gingerbread Man and one student be the fox in each partnership. Then I had the students choose a c sound word that the Gingerbread Man could use to escape from the fox and show that in their frozen pictures. I found that the kids in the afternoon class were much more creative, but that's because they could use something in the scene instead of having to be something, which I think gave them a lot more freedom to be creative. The afternoon class were using things like cookie canons, cages, and candy walls to escape the fox.

Next time I teach this lesson, I'd like to spend more time on allowing the students to explore embodying the Gingerbread Man or the Fox, because I found that many of the students didn't know what to do with their bodies in their frozen positions, so we got a lot of similar physicalities. Totally my bad on that one.

On another note, sorry I post my pre-teaching lesson plans instead of my post-teaching, edited lesson plans. It would probably be more beneficial to post the latter, huh.

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Casey Greenwood

BYU Arts Bridge

Kindergarten

Lesson: C

Strand: Create, Perform

Standards:

• CR.1: Develop imagination to create artistic ideas and work.
• CR.5: Create character through physical movement, gesture, sound, and/or speech and facial expression.
• P.5: Use the body to communicate meaning through space, shape, energy, and gesture.

Objective: Students will show their ability to recognize the letter C by creating a different scene of the Gingerbread Man story with a partner.

Materials needed: Gingerbread Man story

Step 1: Invite the class to sit in a circle. Read the Gingerbread Man story to them, and ask them to clap their hands when they hear a C sound. Pause once in awhile as you read to invite them to pantomime certain activities (ie rolling the dough, running in place, etc.) and, after a couple of repetitions, say with the Gingerbread Man “Run, run as fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man!”

Step 2: Have the students get with a partner, spread out, and face me. Together they will think of a C word that is another way that the Gingerbread Man could run away (if they can’t decide on one word, see if they can mix the two together somehow). For example, they could decide that he could take a car or ride on a crocodile to get away. One could be the Gingerbread Man and one could be the means of escape (ie crocodile) or another person, but remind them that they shouldn’t sit on each other if the Gingerbread Man is riding on something, but they could sit next to each other or the crocodile could kneel while the Gingerbread Man stands (maybe getting ready to get on), etc. If the Gingerbread Man is riding in a car, maybe the other student could be a person chasing the car (like the Little Old Lady or something). If both students want to be the Gingerbread Man, have them do it twice so each gets a turn. On the count of three, they will freeze in a position that shows the Gingerbread Man running away in this way. Have a few partnerships at a time stay frozen while everyone else observes and switch around until everyone has had a turn. As they are frozen, ask each partnership to explain their scene to the class.

Lesson 4: Rrrrrrrrrr

I LOVE pirates. So naturally, when it came time to teach integrated teaching-letters-and-drama-simultaneously lesson, the letter R OBVIOUSLY meant PIRATES in my mind. I was so excited to teach this lesson, and I was SO sad when I couldn't find the bucket of jewels that I had prepared (it literally disappeared!) for the lesson, but once again, I don't think the children were that disappointed.

Unfortunately I spent waaaay too long simply naming the pirate ship in step 1 with the morning class, so I felt that the rest of the lesson was a little rushed. In addition, I had imagined the students to collaborate at their tables and create one central unified flag, however, I forgot that these were kindergarteners that I was working with, so the flags ended up being simply a collection of random drawings without much communication at all. This collaboration thing really is harder than I thought it would be.

So I totally thought this was in my lesson plan, but it must have been in a draft that somehow didn't make it to the final even though I thought it was there (????) but I had the students pretend that an enemy ship was attacking and we brainstormed ideas of how to get them to leave. Here is a clip of the morning class fighting off the enemy ship with all kinds of weapons they could think of:

The afternoon class was full of ideas of how to fight off the enemy pirate ship. I asked them if they could think of words that had the r sound that we could use to fight off our enemies. One student suggested that we could build a giant robot, and to my surprise, the class began building off of each other saying things like "I'll make the feet!" or "Here is the head!" etc. It was fascinating to watch their imaginations come to life! Naturally, we sent the robot off the plank and it destroyed the enemy pirate ship. Victory was ours!

Instead of searching for letter Rs around the room since I thought that would get crazy if some students finished before others, I made a separate flag specifically for the letter R and had all of the students write an upper case and lower case R on it and continue working on their own flags when they were done. Here they are at work:

I really enjoyed this lesson. Although it was far from perfect, I think the students had a good time, and hopefully they won't ever forget what sound the letter r makes!

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Casey Greenwood

BYU Arts Bridge

Kindergarten

Lesson: R

Strand: Create, Perform

Standards:

• CR.1: Develop imagination to create artistic ideas and work.
• CR.2: Arrange the physical playing space to communicate mood, time, and locale.
• CR.5: Create character through physical movement, gesture, sound, and/or speech and facial expression.
• P.5: Use voice to communicate meaning through volume, pitch, tone, rate, and clarity.

Objective: Students will show their ability to recognize and write the letter R and pronounce it in words and will demonstrate their ability to bring an imaginary character to life physically and vocally by pretending to be pirates on a pirate ship and by selecting and writing the letter R to get to the treasure.

Materials needed: Paper, crayons/markers, projector and appropriate computer access/connection cables, bucket of rhinestones, papers with many different letters and numbers written on them

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Hook: Arrange the tables and chairs to be the boundaries of a pirate ship. Help everyone get into character by pretending to be on a pirate ship, swaying with the waves of the ocean. On the projector, show the letter R and have everyone say “AAARRRRRRRRR” like pirates.

Step 1: Group practice. Think of some names or words with the class that start with R and choose one among the words to name the ship. Some examples might be Ruth, Rufus, Ruby, Rhino, Rex, etc. Have the class vote by saying “RRRRRRR” for the name they think is best! The one with the loudest cheer wins.

Step 2: Individual/group practice. Show some more examples of things that start with R or have R in it on the projector and remind the students of the words that you thought of together as a class. Some more examples of pirate-related words include Rubies, paRRot, Royal, FiRe, etc. Hand each student a sheet of paper and give them access to crayons or markers and have them design their own flag for the pirate ship. The flag should have the letter R on it somewhere and a picture of something that starts with R or has R in it (or it could even be a red flag because red starts with R). While the students are coloring, the teacher should scatter numbers and letters around the room. This could also be done in groups of 3 or 4 - students could make a flag together.

Step 3: Assessment. R marks the spot! Tharrrr be treasure near these waters. When they are finished with their flag, they should individually look around the classroom to find a letter R among all the other letters and numbers that are scattered around the classroom. When they find the letter R, they should bring it to the teacher who will reward them with their very own ruby rhinestone!

Kindergarten Lesson 3: The Witch's House

As I began to teach this lesson, I quickly realized that the rules would be way too complicated to explain. Instead of making a separate sound for hot vs. cold in the step 2 game, I discussed with the students what sounds they heard in the story or they might hear from the Witch's House story. Starting out, I had one student choose what sound we should make, and we would make that sound louder if they were close to the hidden prize and quieter if they were far away. Later on, when the students were more familiar with and comfortable with the sounds, I had the students choose whatever sound they wanted to make as the "trick-or-treaters" searched. Unfortunately I forgot to bring candy, so instead I drew the "Witch's house" on a sheet of paper and hid that, but I don't think the kids were any less engaged in the lesson because of that.

I was shocked at how much easier and clearer my instruction was in the afternoon class vs. the morning class. So I suppose that I often have to learn the hard way when it comes to giving clear instructions, especially for kindergarteners.

One of our goals for the semester was to get the students collaborating and working in groups, so I attempted to have students hide the "Witch's house" together while the "trick-or-treaters" closed their eyes, but this turned out to be a matter of who could grab the paper and run first. And since I realized that I don't really know how to solve arguments without taking a side, maybe collaboration wasn't going to be as easy as I thought it would be.


Students cover their eyes during the hunt for the witch's house activity.

Students were really creative with where they wanted to hide the witch's house!

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Casey Greenwood

BYU Arts Bridge

Kindergarten

Lesson: The Witch’s House

Strand: Create, Perform

Standards:

• CR.1: Develop imagination to create artistic ideas and work.
• P.5: Use voice to communicate meaning through volume, pitch, tone, rate, and clarity.
• P.6: Use imagination to support artistic choices.

Objective: Students will demonstrate their ability to create an environment and create meaning with their voices by selecting and imitating their own sounds for the witch’s house in a “Hot and Cold” trick-or-treating game.

Materials needed: We’re Off to Find the Witch’s House by Mr. Krieb, candy or other treat

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Hook: Read We’re Off to Find the Witch’s House by Mr. Krieb to the students, up until the witch comes to the door. As you read through the story, have the students make the sounds of the witch’s house along with you so that they can become familiar with what kind of sounds there are on the way to the witch’s house.

Step 1: Assessment. Ask the students for suggestions of what other sounds might be on the way to the witch’s house. Do them as a class.

Step 2: Group practice.  Split the students into four groups. Have one group be the trick-or-treaters, and have the other groups participate in making the sounds that are in the witch’s house. Have the trick-or-treaters close their eyes or leave the room while the teacher hides a treat or other object somewhere in the room (a different spot for each group). While you are hiding the treat, tell the groups that when the trick-or-treaters get close to the treat the class will laugh like a witch or say “We’re not afraid.” Then have each non-trick-or-treater group decide and what sound should mean “you are too far away (cold)” (it’s okay if they are all different sounds to create the atmosphere of going to the witch’s house). Make these sounds as the trick-or-treaters try to find the hidden object, determining how far or close they are to the hiding spot. Have the trick-or-treaters hold hands or something so they don’t separate from one another. If they separate from each other, then everyone has to scream because the witch will get them and they have to switch jobs with another group! Once they find the treat, switch roles if there is time. Don’t give them the treat until the end of class.

Step 3: Transition. Finish the story.