Lesson planning is difficult when you are trying to think of ways to both educate and entertain a large group of fussy first graders. They're still trying to grasp basic concepts, learning how to communicate, and decipher words on paper. They even struggle to read their own writing! Which makes writing assignments extremely difficult and time consuming. A mixture of poor teaching skills by their day-school teacher and no pressure at home to practice reading and writing makes for some bad news for these little guys. They are so behind in their reading and writing skills that I have to do something to get them excited about writing and story telling. I mean, they ALWAYS want to tell me stories...So why not give them their very own theatre!
For the theatre lesson, I taught the kids about story elements (character, setting, problem, solution). They are then to create their own Story map in prep for their very own story telling assignment that will end in them telling their story via puppet show. After creating their story map, the students must write 4 sentence about what happens in their story. The kids, so far, have done alright. They still struggle with a lot of spelling, grammar, and coherency...buuuut I'm getting them to write and think about how their story progresses. So, that makes me happy.
For this task I used a large cardboard box, made a few cut outs and added some color. Thus became Santa's Theatre. I'm excited to see their reactions to their theatre. I'm hoping the kids will be more excited about writing!
...From what I hear, there will be some ninja elves. hehe
updates: The kids LOOOOOOVED their little theatre! :)
...From what I hear, there will be some ninja elves. hehe
updates: The kids LOOOOOOVED their little theatre! :)
