Learning & Development: Movement sessions, part 3 - Acting up

BEFORE GETTING STARTED

Before the session, choose a story. Read and discuss it with the children and have them retell it. The length of the session will really depend on age and knowledge of your children. And look again at Part 1 (Nursery World, 26 June, p16) to remind yourself about planning a session.

The session

Part 1. Warming up

Whatever the story, you can structure the warm-up around it. For example, with Hansel and Gretel, ask the children to find a space and then to run around the room, then to run around as though being chased (explain safety), to plod as though tired and hungry, to crouch as though frightened and cold. You can come up with all manner of suggestions, based on any story.

Part 2. The main teaching session

- Ensure you know what you want to teach and how it links to the last lesson, for example, to enable children to express emotions and ideas physically or to re-enact a story, thereby understanding the importance of sequencing.

- So children can reconnect with the space, ask them to move about the room/space walking with arms swinging. Explain you are all going to act out the story and start to tell it (Hansel and Gretel):

'Once upon a time there was a family, they had a farm and worked hard tilling the land.'

Ask the children to pretend to be farmers working hard on the land.

'But then they became poor and didn't have enough money for food.'

Ask the children to be sad, worried, anxious, and they can react in any way they like, crying or walking around sadly. Staff will have to participate because the children may be unsure about how to act out the story. Make comments as you go along, 'John, you look so sad'.

'The stepmother decided upon a plan to get rid of the children, whom she didn't like.'

Ask children to act being nasty, using both bodily movements and facial expressions. Continue in this way until the story is told.

- You could then act out a story as a ring game and the children could be chosen for particular parts, for example, 'There lived a princess long ago', or a story such as The Giant Turnip or Jez Alborough's Duck in the Truck, where various characters are involved in moving a truck from the mud.

- A slightly different twist is to divide children into groups of four to act out to each other, say, Sally Grindley's story: Silly Goose and Daft Duck Play Hide and Seek, where there is a silly goose, a daft duck, a scheming fox and a friendly bear. You can narrate the story and elaborate as you want, and each child is one character.

Part 3. Warm down

- Ask the children to move around the room, darting about as though they are trying to escape a net, jumping about the room as though they are a monkey moving hither and thither, and finally, using slower movements like an ogre, such as Shrek, lumbering along.

- Ask the children to freeze as a character from a favourite story and then to move and freeze again as another character and then to lie down, and to think about their favourite story character. This quiet period is essential for calming the children down before getting dressed and moving on to the next activity of the day.

- Helen Bilton is the author of several books on outdoor play for the early years and PGCE programme director at the University of Reading.